Polls have opened in Bosnia and Herzegovina for a general election to choose new leaders at the national and regional levels, in a vote that could affect the country’s European Union membership bid. On Saturday, about 3.4 million voters are choosing the three members of the country’s multiethnic presidency, lawmakers for the national Parliament and heads of institutions for the country’s two entities: the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) and Republika Srpska, which is dominated by ethnic Serbs. Bosnia’s complex web of governing institutions was created by a United States-brokered peace agreement in 1995 in an effort to manage the ethnic divisions between Muslim Bosniaks, Orthodox Serbs and Catholic Croats that gave rise to the 1992-95 war.
The major parties’ repeated focus on war-era rhetoric and division was frustrating for some voters, activist Adi Selman of the Karton Revolucija protest group told the news agency. In the FBiH, Bosniak parties are pushing for a stronger central state, with incumbent Bosniak presidency member Denis Becirovic pledging a renewed path to the EU and NATO. The EU granted Bosnia candidate status in December 2022, but accession negotiations scheduled for 2024 were delayed as Brussels demanded the country pass stronger anticorruption laws and reform its judicial system.
Croat nationalist parties are also pushing for electoral reform, demanding a greater say in choosing the Croat member of the presidency in the entity they share with the more numerous Bosniaks. Meanwhile, Russia is accused of slowing down the country’s path towards joining the EU, while also holding close ties with the SNSD, which favours secession for Republika Srpska. This general election is the first in the country in which new electronic tools are being used to scan ballot papers and carry out biometric fingerprint verification in a move to reduce fraud during the election.
Polls close at 7pm ( ) and first results are expected later on Sunday.
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