KARAN: SRPSKA HAS NO RIGHT TO A PRESIDENT WITHOUT A CLEAR STANCE

BANJA LUKA, JANUARY 22 /SRNA/ - It is of crucial importance for Republika Srpska that the position of President of the Republic be held by a person who has a clear, unambiguous and stable stance on all key political issues, constitutional law professor Siniša Karan told SRNA.

"The Serb people must know what the person who seeks to become president stands for, because the president of the Republic is not a decoration, but the political backbone of the system - a man who defends the constitutional order, identity and freedom of Srpska.

That is why the fact that the president of the largest opposition party in Republika Srpska Branko Blanuša wants to come to the position of president without a stance on anything other than opposition to the current authorities is both confusing and worrying," Karan pointed out.

He explained that being "against" something is not a policy, but a slogan, stressing that Republika Srpska must not be governed by slogans, but by principles.

"If the political platform behind him is judged by his media appearances, then it is symptomatic that Blanuša almost exclusively addresses the public through Sarajevo-based media - the very same ones that belittle and despise Republika Srpska to the extent that they refer to it as an abbreviation rather than as an expression of historical Serbian statehood in these areas," Professor Karan said.

From a man who wants to be President of Republika Srpska, he added, citizens have the right to hear clear answers to questions that are of vital importance and concern the identity and survival of Srpska.

"It is important to know what Srebrenica represents to Branko Blanuša, especially since in the Sarajevo media in which he appears there are regular guests who openly demand that Srebrenica be removed from Republika Srpska. It is important to know whether Blanuša accepts the labels from those circles that brand the Serbian people as genocidal, and whether he dares to clearly say in Sarajevo that genocide was not committed in Srebrenica," Karan stressed.

He added that it is also important to know what Ratko Mladić represents to him, what Radovan Karadžić, the founder of the SDS, represents to him, and whether Radovan Karadžić congratulated him on his election as party president.

"These are not questions of the past - these are questions of political truth. Because someone who has no stance on these issues will have no stance on property, forests, rivers, mineral resources, or on the right of Republika Srpska to decide for itself," Karan pointed out.

He recalled that Republika Srpska was not created on foundations built by people who did not know what they wanted, nor does it survive with such people.

"Republika Srpska was created and exists because it has been led by people who know what they stand for and who are ready to pay any personal price so that Srpska may be free, stable and its own.

That is why it is important for citizens in the coming period to clearly distinguish statesmanlike responsibility from political wandering. Republika Srpska has no right to a president without a clear stance. And the Serbian people do not have the luxury of being led by those who would rather curry favor with Sarajevo than serve Srpska," constitutional law professor Siniša Karan concluded.