After the Presidency discussed this matter at a session in Sarajevo on Tuesday, its current chairman, Serb representative Borislav Paravac, told reporters it was up to Covic to decide what he would do and that the country's leadership concluded that all of this "is about the question of the consistent abiding by Bosnian law and Covic's personal standpoint as well as the position of the party that nominated him for a presidency member."
"The Presidency concluded that it did not want to discuss the indictment issued against Covic and that it was the business of the judicial institutions," Paravac said.
Covic has been exposed to strong pressure exerted by the international community's representatives in Bosnia who are insisting that he step down after being indicted for abuse of office and corruption connected with the Lijanovic meat-processing company while he was the finance minister of the Croat-Muslim entity.
The European Union, and the US and Canada as well as the international community's High Representative to Bosnia, Paddy Ashdown, explicitly asked for Covic's resignation.
The leadership of Covic's party - the Bosnian Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ BiH) - on Monday expressed support to his decision not to step down.
The country's Constitutional Court last week refused to relieve Mato Tadic, who is also one of the indictees covered by the Lijanovic indictment, from the post of the president of that court.
Covic, Tadic, the Lijanovic brothers, who are the owners of the said company, and a law professor, Zdravko Lucic, are expected to appear before the Court of Bosnia-Herzegovina on 30 March and enter a guilty or not-guilty plea.