Deputies elected at the October 1 parliamentary elections took oaths at the session, but the election of a three-member presidency which is to run the parliament's lower house was postponed at the request of the Party of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD).
A deputy of that party, Nikola Spiric, who is a likely candidate for the post of chairman of the Council of Ministers, the country's government, said that there was no sense in electing the new parliamentary leadership without agreement on the make-up of the future executive authority.
"If one parliamentary majority is to set up the legislative authority, and another one the executive authority, we will have two sides shifting responsibility between one another in the next four years," Spiric said.
The strongest party in the House of Representatives is the Bosniak Party of Democratic Action (SDA), which has nine seats.
It is followed by the Party for Bosnia-Herzegovina (SBiH) with eight seats and the SNSD with seven seats. They are followed by a number of parties with three or fewer deputies.
The backbone of the future ruling coalition will be made up of the Serb SNSD party and the Bosniak SDA and SBiH parties. It is still unclear if Croat interests will be represented by the HDZ BiH, which has three seats, or the HDZ 1990, which has two seats.
The SDA and the HDZ BiH previously reached agreement in principle to form a coalition, which is supported by the SNSD led by Milorad Dodik, while the SBiH prefers the HDZ 1990, which is led by Bozo Ljubic.
A court verdict handed down last week on HDZ BiH leader Dragan Covic has significantly weakened the position of the HDZ BiH, which Ljubic and his supporters are now trying to use to their advantage. Covic was sentenced to five years in prison pending appeal for abuse of office at the time he was finance minister of the Croat-Muslim entity.
The candidate of the HDZ BiH for vice-president of the House of Representatives is the party's vice-president, Niko Lozancic, while the candidate of the HDZ 1990 is Martin Raguz.
The session of the House of Representatives is scheduled to continue on Thursday.