Around 3.4 million Bosnians could vote in Sunday’s general elections, held 4 years into the country’s EU candidacy. Accession talks still hadn’t begun, and ethnic party rivalries continued to stall the central government. Polls closed at 7 p.m. local time (1700 GMT). Preliminary results were expected late Sunday.
Voters chose members of the multiethnic, tripartite presidency and lawmakers for the federal parliament. They also elected heads of institutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina’s two largely autonomous entities: the Muslim-Croat Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Serb-run Republika Srpska.
A Candidate Without Talks
Bosnia and Herzegovina has held EU membership candidate status since 2022. That was 4 years ago. Reforms must come before membership talks can begin, including stronger judicial oversight and anti-corruption laws.
The election came as the economy slowed, progress toward membership dragged and political gridlock persisted. Dominant ethnic parties in the two entities have repeatedly blocked decisions by the weak central government. The Bosniak SDA, Serb SNSD and Croat HDZ BiH faced multi-ethnic opposition coalitions led by the Social Democratic Party.
The roots of the paralysis lie in the US-brokered 1995 Dayton Peace Accords, signed 31 years ago. They ended the 1992-95 Bosnian war, which followed Yugoslavia’s breakup. A multiethnic central government shares responsibilities with the self-governing neutral Brcko district and two semi-autonomous entities, which are further divided into cantons and communities. Ethnic lines shape the whole system. Around half the population are Muslim Bosniaks, 31% are Orthodox Serb and 15% are Catholic Croat.
The Dodik Factor
Milorad Dodik, the SNSD secessionist leader, wasn’t on the ballot, but he remained influential in Republika Srpska. He formerly led the entity as president. A conviction for defying the top international envoy overseeing the 1995 peace process bars him from public office for six years. His ally Savo Minic ran for the entity’s presidency.
Dodik wants close ties with Serbia and Russia. He had recently returned from Moscow, where he met Russian President Vladimir Putin. At his final rally in Banja Luka on Friday, he told supporters: “Bosnia and Herzegovina is dead, it is an impossible country.”
In the Federation, Bosniak parties called for a stronger central state. The SDA focused on keeping the country united against Serb separatism. Bosnian Croats largely backed their ethnic parties, including the Bosnian branch of Croatia’s ruling conservative Croatian Democratic Union. Denis Becirovic, the incumbent Bosniak presidency member, pledged a renewed path toward the EU and NATO.
Voters Want Out of the Past
The country has remained peaceful in recent years, but ethnonationalist parties have kept divisions alive. Voters have said they want to move beyond war-era rhetoric and division. As polls closed, it wasn’t clear whether results would reward that sentiment or the parties that have long dominated the entities.
Why This Matters: Bosnia’s election tests whether EU candidate status can produce results without a functioning central state. Accession talks depend on judicial and anti-corruption reforms, and a government must be able to make decisions for those reforms to advance. The entity-level parties that have stalled decisions are the same ones that control the ballot. From a centre-right perspective, the case rests on conditionality: candidates earn progress by delivering reforms, and the EU’s credibility depends on holding that line. There’s a security side too. A leader who calls the country “impossible” and has just met Putin holds sway over one entity, in a state the EU wants to bring closer. Brussels will have to judge reform delivery by what the next government does, not what it promises.