Politics
Under its constitution, Republika Srpska has a president, parliament (the 83-member National Assembly of Republika Srpska), executive (with a prime minister and several ministries), its own police, supreme court and lower courts, customs service (under the state-level customs service), and postal service. It also has its own coat of arms, flag (a variant of the Serbian flag without the coat of arms displayed), and national anthem. However, the national anthem, like Spain, San Marino and Abu Dhabi has no words to it. The Constitutional Law on Coat of Arms and Anthem of the Republika Srpska was ruled not in conformance with the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina as it states that those symbols "represent statehood of the Republika Srpska" and are used "in accordance with moral norms of Serb people". According to the Constitutional Court's decision, the Law was to be corrected by September 2006. The national assembly of Republika Srpska formed a board which is going to make a proposal for the anthem and coat of arms of Republika Srpska. Its former flagship airline, Air Srpska, ceased operations in 2003. The new airline, Sky Srpska, has been established in 2007, and has a codeshare agreement with Slovenian airline Adria Airways since 2010.
Although the constitution names Sarajevo as the capital of Republika Srpska, the northwestern city of Banja Luka is the headquarters of most of the institutions of government – including the parliament – and is therefore the de facto capital.
After the war, Republika Srpska retained its army, but in August 2005, the parliament consented to transfer control of Army of Republika Srpska to a state-level ministry and abolish the Republic's defense ministry and army by 1 January 2006. These reforms were required by NATO as a precondition of Bosnia and Herzegovina's admission to the Partnership for Peace. As of 14 December 2006, Bosnia and Herzegovina is a part of the Partnership for Peace programme.
Read more about this topic: Republika Srpska
Famous quotes containing the word politics:
“Politics is not an end, but a means. It is not a product, but a process. It is the art of government. Like other values it has its counterfeits. So much emphasis has been placed upon the false that the significance of the true has been obscured and politics has come to convey the meaning of crafty and cunning selfishness, instead of candid and sincere service.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
“Our family talked a lot at table, and only two subjects were taboo: politics and personal troubles. The first was sternly avoided because Father ran a nonpartisan daily in a small town, with some success, and did not wish to express his own opinions in public, even when in private.”
—M.F.K. Fisher (1908–1992)
“There is a place where we are always alone with our own mortality, where we must simply have something greater than ourselves to hold onto—God or history or politics or literature or a belief in the healing power of love, or even righteous anger.... A reason to believe, a way to take the world by the throat and insist that there is more to this life than we have ever imagined.”
—Dorothy Allison (b. 1949)