Voting has opened across Bosnia and Herzegovina in general elections that will determine the country’s leadership and lawmakers at several levels of government.
Polling stations opened at 7 a.m. local time (0500 GMT) on Sunday and are due to close at 7 p.m., according to the Central Election Commission (CIK).
The electoral roll contains 3,414,364 registered voters, who are casting ballots in elections held every four years. A total of 518 public officials will be elected.
Among the key contests is the election of the three members of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s tripartite presidency, representing the country’s Bosniak, Croat and Serb communities. Voters are also choosing members of the state-level Parliamentary Assembly.
The vote extends to the country’s two main entities. In the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, voters will elect members of the House of Representatives, while in Republika Srpska they will choose members of the National Assembly, as well as the entity’s president and vice presidents.
Ten cantonal assemblies in the Federation are also holding elections.
Ten candidates contest three presidency seats
Ten candidates are seeking the three positions on the state presidency.
In the Federation, voters can choose between candidates for either the Bosniak or Croat seat, while voters in Republika Srpska elect the Serb representative.
For the Bosniak position, the candidates are incumbent Denis Becirovic, Bakir Izetbegovic, Semir Efendic and Fahrudin Radoncic.
Darijana Filipovic, Zdenko Lucic and Slaven Kovacevic are contesting the Croat seat.
The Serb race features incumbent Zeljka Cvijanovic alongside Marinko Bozovic and Nebojsa Vukanovic.
Twelve candidates are also competing for the presidency of Republika Srpska.
The CIK has approved 75 political parties, 29 coalitions and four independent candidates, with more than 7,000 candidacies registered across the various levels of government.
New voting technology introduced nationwide
This election marks the first nationwide deployment of new technology intended to strengthen voter identification, ballot counting and the transmission of election results.
Biometric verification, ballot-scanning equipment and video surveillance have been introduced at about 4,500 polling stations.
Once their identities are confirmed, voters will have their fingerprints verified before receiving paper ballots. After voting, the ballots will be scanned and then deposited in ballot boxes.
Information from the scanners will be transmitted to the CIK, allowing preliminary and incomplete results to begin emerging at about 8 p.m., earlier than was possible in previous elections.
Despite the introduction of electronic scanning, ballots will also undergo a manual count. The election commission says additional verification will be carried out if there is a substantial difference between the scanned figures and the manual tally. Should the discrepancy persist, the manual count will be treated as the official result.
Bosnians abroad also cast ballots
Citizens living outside Bosnia and Herzegovina are participating through postal voting and at diplomatic missions.
The CIK recorded 48,078 voters who registered to vote by mail, one of the lower diaspora registration figures seen in recent election cycles.
Voting is also being conducted at 20 Bosnian diplomatic and consular facilities across 13 countries, including Germany, Austria, Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia, Switzerland, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, Norway, the United States, Qatar and Jordan.
The total number of registered voters is slightly above the 3.37 million recorded for the 2022 general elections.
In 2022, Becirovic won the Bosniak presidency seat, Zeljko Komsic secured the Croat position and Cvijanovic was elected as the Serb member.
Political system shaped by post-war settlement
Bosnia and Herzegovina’s political structure is rooted in the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement, which brought an end to the 1992–1995 war.
The country is divided into the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republika Srpska, alongside the self-governing Brcko District. Its first post-war elections were held in September 1996, four years after Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence in 1992.
