Zukorlic Sets 72-Hour Deadline for Bosniak Forum
The president of the Party of Justice and Reconciliation called the leaders of Ugljanin's SDA Sandzak and Lekic's SDP to an urgent meeting. Election lists are due October 4.
Usame Zukorlic, president of the Party of Justice and Reconciliation and a minister without portfolio in the Serbian government, gave Sulejman Ugljanin and Samir Lekic a 72 hour deadline on September 7 to sit at the same table and hold the first working session of the Forum of Bosniak Political Representatives of Sandzak. Ugljanin heads SDA Sandzak, Lekic heads the Sandzak Democratic Party. The call landed the same day Ratko Mladic was buried with military honors at Belgrade’s Topcider cemetery, in the presence of state and political officials.
Zukorlic delivered the call in a video address, tying it directly to the scenes from the funeral. “Moments like this show why Bosniaks need political cooperation. Not a coalition, not a division of posts and positions, but a joint voice for when the voice of Bosniaks must be heard,” Zukorlic said in the video address.
The SPP president described the forum as a place for joint response in situations that go beyond party rivalry, not as an arrangement over a coalition or a division of positions. He recalled that his party had adopted a Declaration on Unification at its congress, and said he sees the launch of the forum as a concrete step in that direction. “Unification doesn’t mean we think alike about everything, but that we act as one people on the issues that matter most. Our unity has no alternative. Let us answer insult with unification,” Zukorlic said, closing the video address.
Why Does the Deadline Fall Now?
The call comes at a moment when relations between the three largest Bosniak parties were already under scrutiny. The deadline for submitting election lists runs out on October 4, the vote is set for October 25, and every day without an agreement narrows the window for a joint run, if one happens at all. On September 2, SDA Sandzak again called on the SDP and the SPP to form a single Bosniak list, arguing that running separately splits the Bosniak vote. The SDP turned the proposal down at the time, saying a joint list was not realistic given the timeline and technical details, while the SPP said it would state its position only after its own election congress.
It was at that very congress, held on September 4 in Novi Pazar, that Zukorlic won a new four year mandate at the head of the SPP, and the party adopted the unification declaration mentioned above. The call to Ugljanin and Lekic three days later thus follows on from a process already under way, rather than an isolated reaction to the funeral in Belgrade, even though the funeral, by Zukorlic’s own account, was what turned the deadline into something concrete.
Before this call, Samir Lekic had already said publicly that the SDP was ready to talk with SDA Sandzak and the SPP, and that common interests should be sought despite political differences. He has now backed the idea of the forum, with a warning that it must not become a new source of division within the Bosniak political camp instead of a platform for a joint stance.
What Do the Three Parties Already Have in Common?
Before this call, according to Fuad Bacicanin, president of the Bosniak National Council, all three parliamentary Bosniak parties had already agreed on several shared goals: resolving the constitutional and legal status of Bosniaks in Serbia, setting up regional institutions in Sandzak, securing Bosniak participation in state bodies, developing the State University of Novi Pazar, and banning mining on the Pester plateau. After a meeting of Bosniak party representatives, Bacicanin called it progress, even though a joint list still had not been agreed. “This is one big step toward finally achieving unity among Bosniaks,” Bacicanin said.
Srpske Vesti has previously reported that minority parties, Bosniak ones included, are heading into the coming election without their leaders’ names on the ballot, which makes relations between them even more sensitive at a moment when a joint run is being sought. The shared goals accepted by SDA Sandzak, the SDP and the SPP do not by themselves resolve the question of a single list, which has so far been the sticking point.
Whether Ugljanin and Lekic will accept the deadline Zukorlic has set, and whether the forum’s first session will actually take place by September 10, remains open. An answer, if it comes, would have to arrive before the election list deadline expires on October 4.
