May 2 (SeeNews) - The lower house of the parliament of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Federation voted into office the entity's new government led by prime minister Nermin Niksic, president of the Social Democratic Party, SDP.
Out of the 54 lawmakers present in the 98-seat House of Representatives, 51 voted for, two were against and one abstained, according to a video of the parliament session streamed on Friday.
The new government of the Federation will focus on economic reforms, primarily relying on own resources and capacities, whereas international cooperation will be an impulse which will benefit the whole country, Niksic told parliament.
On April 27, High Representative Christian Schmidt signed a decision which enabled the House of Representatives of the Federation to vote on a government proposal submitted by the entity's new president, Lidija Bradara, who took office in early March. Prior to the decision, the government formation was blocked because the nationalist conservative Party of Democratic Action (SDA) rebuffed all proposals for a new government that did not include its ministers, according to local media reports.
SDA won 26 seats in the Federation's House of Representatives in the October 2 elections. Bradara's party HDZ BiH has four seats.
The Office of the High Representative (OHR) is an ad hoc international institution responsible for overseeing implementation of civilian aspects of the Dayton peace agreement that put an end to the war in Bosnia in the 1990s.
According to the US-brokered Dayton peace agreement, the country is divided into two entities - the Serb Republic - mostly populated by ethnic Serbs - and the Federation - majority populated by Bosniaks and Croats. The Brcko District, functioning under a decentralised system of local government, was created in 2000, out of land from both entities to reflect its multi-ethnic nature.
The Federation and the Serb Republic have their own governments and parliaments and are linked by a weak central government. The Federation is divided into ten cantons with their own governments and parliaments.