Bosnia’s 3 Presidents OK Plan for New Government

After haggling since September elections, Bosnia’s three-member presidency agreed Saturday on the makeup of a new government, with a Bosnian Serb and a Muslim to rotate weekly in the post of de facto prime minister.

The six-person, ethnically balanced Council of Ministers will include a Croat as vice chairperson and as foreign minister, a Bosnian Serb as minister for civil affairs and communications and a Bosnian Muslim as minister for foreign trade and economic relations.

Each minister will have two deputies representing Bosnia’s other two ethnic groups.

“Some people might say it’s a complicated structure, some people might say it’s extravagant,” international mediator Michael Steiner said. “But it is a structure which takes into account that, after the war . . . there is still so much mistrust.”

At a news conference, Steiner called the agreement another step toward fulfilling the Dayton, Ohio, peace accord and giving Bosnia a single, common government.

In the first elections since fighting stopped a year ago, voters chose a Serb, a Croat and a Muslim to serve on a three-member presidency. Bosnian voters also selected a joint legislature.

Steiner and civilian peace coordinator Carl Bildt have been pressing the co-presidents to reach an agreement in time for several international conferences this month and so that the government could begin addressing the critical problems facing many Bosnians with the onset of winter.

The formation of a functioning national government is necessary before Bosnia can approach the World Bank and other international institutions to get loans for reconstructing the war-ravaged country.