Zukorlic Calls Ugljanin and Lekic to Sandzak Talks Today
SPP leader Usame Zukorlic has called a 2 p.m. meeting today with Sulejman Ugljanin and Samir Lekic on a Bosniak political forum, with no confirmation yet that either will attend.
Usame Zukorlic, president of the Party of Justice and Reconciliation (SPP), has called a meeting today, Wednesday, September 9, with the leaders of two other Bosniak parties from Sandzak. The invitation went out to Sulejman Ugljanin, president of the Party of Democratic Action of Sandzak (SDA), and Samir Lekic, president of the Sandzak Democratic Party (SDP), with the meeting set for 2 p.m. The subject is the creation of a Forum of Bosniak Political Representatives of Sandzak, a project the SPP announced a little over a week ago.
The idea for the forum grew out of the SPP’s election congress, held on September 4 in Novi Pazar, where Zukorlic was reelected to lead the party. The congress adopted a Declaration on the Unification of Bosniaks, a document that, according to the SPP, is meant to lay the groundwork for the forum as a permanent space for political dialogue. In its invitation to SDA Sandzak and the Sandzak Democratic Party, the SPP said the goal is:
“establishing a lasting space for political dialogue and joint action on issues of interest to Bosniaks and Sandzak”
As we reported earlier, Zukorlic gave Ugljanin and Lekic 72 hours to respond to the initiative, a deadline that expired just before today’s meeting.
The SPP has also linked the need for a united Bosniak stance to recent events in Belgrade. The party said in a statement:
“This kind of cooperation takes on particular importance after the recent events in Belgrade and the public glorification of Ratko Mladic, a war criminal convicted by a final verdict, which further shows the need for Bosniak political representatives to have a unified voice whenever the dignity and feelings of the Bosniak people are under threat”
The SPP’s invitation followed an earlier push by SDA Sandzak and the Bosniak National Council (BNV) for the three Bosniak parties to run on a single joint list in the upcoming parliamentary election. The SPP welcomed that idea at the time but made a concrete answer contingent on the outcome of its own election congress, which has since taken place and produced the declaration mentioned above.
What Lekic and Ugljanin Are Saying
Even before the SPP’s invitation, Samir Lekic had welcomed the SDA Sandzak initiative, and he has now backed the forum idea as well. He said any additional space for dialogue and cooperation on shared interests was welcome, with the caveat that the forum must not become a source of new divisions. Speaking about the earlier proposal for a joint list, Lekic said:
“Among other things, that will determine whether, after the election, we will be able to discuss forming a joint parliamentary caucus”
With that, Lekic opened up a question that goes beyond the forum itself: whether the three parties could work together in parliament after October 25, not just during the campaign. Ugljanin’s SDA Sandzak, which itself had earlier called for a united Bosniak front, has not yet publicly responded to the invitation to this specific meeting.
Backing the idea, however, is not the same as confirming attendance at today’s meeting. Neither SDA Sandzak nor the Sandzak Democratic Party has issued a statement saying Ugljanin and Lekic will personally show up at 2 p.m. Zukorlic is heading into the meeting with a clear message for both men, but no guarantee that his counterparts will actually take a seat at the table.
The question at stake reaches well beyond today’s meeting. The deadline for submitting candidate lists for the October 25 parliamentary election falls on October 4, less than a month from now. If the SPP, SDA Sandzak and the Sandzak Democratic Party fail to agree on either the forum or a joint appearance by that date, Bosniaks in Sandzak will go into the election divided, just as they have before.
