Croatian Democratic Union of Bosnia and Herzegovina
The Croatian Democratic Union of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatian Democratic Union of Bosnia and Herzegovina ( kroat.: Hrvatska Demokratska zajednica of Bosnia and Herzegovina, HDZ BiH) is a political party of the Croat community in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
She has taken part in all free elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The party received the majority support of the Croat community in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the elections in general. She was involved until 2000 and from 2002 to 2006 in the government.
The HDZ BiH has observer status in the European People's Party (EPP ).
Chairman of the party is since June 2005, Dragan Covic, who was Ante Jelavic and Miroslav Prce succeeded. The latter were on 23 January 2004 on suspicion of having embezzled created during Hercegovacka banka funds, has been arrested.
The foremost target is to represent the interests of the Croatian and Catholic citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Regarding the question whether the Dayton Constitution is to be changed, says the HDZBiH that a change is necessary and various options are to check. In the background of the official party leadership were or are political role models and representatives from the vicinity of the former Croatian Defence Council, HVO, who see in the temporarily prostaatlichen course of the party leadership a sell- Croatian interests.
History
The party was founded on August 18, 1990 in Sarajevo. It is an offshoot of Hrvatska Demokratska zajednica in Croatia and was long under the strong influence of the mother party. Programmatically, she sat down on the right of the Croatian nation to self-determination up to secession a. With the financial assistance of the Croatian Diaspora and the State of Croatia succeeded their representatives from time to time, to establish a parallel government of Herceg - Bosna. After the war, from 1992 to 1995 the HDZBiH traversed numerous internal conflicts that led to the departure or to the exclusion of reform forces regularly.
Under its chairman Barisa Čolak the HDZ BiH had between 2002 and 2004 approaches on a programmatic new orientation. They presented itself even as People's Party of European character that fights for the preservation of the values of the Croatian and the Christian cultural community. She wanted to address all layers of the Croatian population in Bosnia and Herzegovina without excluding citizens of other ethnic origin or religious affiliation. This development culminated in December 2004 in recognition as EPP observer. Since then, the party has, however, from the programmatic realignment. So was elected Dragan Covic as the new Chairman in June 2005, despite having run a trial on serious criminal charges. In January 2006, the EPP decided to cease all contacts with the board of HDZBiH. However, the party retained its observer status. Due to intra-party differences, the HDZ split in April 2006 1990 of the HDZBiH from.
Election results
In the elections of October 2002, the party was part of the electoral alliance » Koalicija " (German: Coalition ), which could unite 9.5 % of the votes and thus five of the 42 seats in the House of Representatives of Bosnia and Herzegovina and 16 of 140 seats in the Chamber of Deputies was able to win the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In the elections of October 2006, the HDZ suffered losses after elimination of the HDZ 1990 ( Hrvatska Demokratska zajednica 1990). In the House of Representatives of the general government, the party lost two of the five seats and thus provides new only 3 of 42 Deputies. The cleavage of HDZ in 1990 won this, add 2 seats. Also in the House of Representatives of the Federation, the HDZ lost seats: Newly puts 8 (-8) of 98 deputies. Finally, the HDZ candidate for the three-member State Presidency Ivo Miro Jovic was not clearly elected with only 26.1% of Croatian voices.