Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina

The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, (Federacija Bosne i Hercegovine), informally referred to as the Muslim-Croat Federation, is the larger of the two constituent, de facto autonomous Entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is primarily inhabited by Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) and Bosnian Croats. However, by decision of the Constitutional court in 2001, the Serbs were declared the third constituent ethnic group of the Federation. The same happened to Bosniaks and Croats in the Republika Srpska.

The Federation was created by the Washington accords signed on March 18, 1994, which established a Constituent assembly (Ustavotvorna skupština/Ustavotvorbeni Sabor). The Constituent assembly continued its work until October 1996.

Now, the Federation has its own capital, government, flag and coat of arms, president, parliament, customs and police departments, postal system (in fact, two of them), army (the Vojska Federacije Bosne i Hercegovine; however, recently — just like the Vojska Republike Srpske — it was placed under control of the state-level Bosnia-Herzegovina Ministry of Defense), and airline (Air Bosna).

Table of contents

1 Administrative divisions
2 Institutions
3 See also
4 External links

Administrative divisions

The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina is divided into ten cantons (kanton or županija):

Una-Sana, Unsko-Sanski Kanton
Posavina, Posavski Kanton
Tuzla, Tuzlanski Kanton
Zenica-Doboj, Zeničko-Dobojski Kanton
Bosnian Podrinje, Bosanskopodrinjski Kanton
Central Bosnia, Srednjebosanski Kanton or Županija Središnja Bosna
Herzegovina-Neretva, Hercegovačko-neretvanski Kanton or Hercegovačko-neretvanska Županija
West Herzegovina, Zapadnohercegovačka Županija
Sarajevo, Kanton Sarajevo
West Bosnia, Zapadnobosanska (hercegbosanska) Županija

Five of the cantons (Una-Sana, Tuzla, Zenica-Doboj, Bosnian Podrinje and Sarajevo) are Bosniak cantons, three (Posavina, West Herzegovina and West Bosnia) are Croat cantons, and two (Central Bosnia and Herzegovina-Neretva) are 'ethnically mixed', meaning there are special legislative procedures for protection of the constituent ethnic groups.

A significant portion of Brcko district was also part of the Federation; however, when the district was created out of the territory of both entities, it was placed under control of neither of the two, and is hence under direct jurisdiction of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Institutions

There is a President of the Federation, and two Vice-presidents thereof, just like in Republika Srpska, the incumbents of which regularly rotate. The current president is a Croat, Niko Lozančić of the HDZ party, whereas both the Bosniak (Sahbaz Džihanović) and Serb (Desnica Radivojević) Vice-presidents come from the SDA party.

The Cabinet has 16 members with carefully delineated nationality quotas. There are 8 Bosniak, 5 Croat and 3 Serb ministers in the current Government. The present Prime minister is a Bosniak, Ahmet Hadžipašić of the SDA.

The Parliament consists of two houses, the House of Representatives and the House of Peoples. The House of Representatives is an elected body of 140 MPs, whereas the House of Peoples consists of representatives delegated by the cantonal parliaments.

Interestingly, a number of institutions in the Federation still function under the 'componental' system; there is a Croat postal system and a Bosniak postal system, a Croat telecom and a Bosniak telecom, a Croat army component and a Bosniak army component; however, recently many systems have been merged into one single public company, eg. the pension system or the public broadcasting company of the Federation. Each of the cantons also has broad-ranging authorities, such as having its own courts and police forces.