Bosnia and Herzegovina held general elections on Sunday for a three-member presidency and multiple legislatures, with wartime ethnic divisions still shaping the main races.
Voters in Bosnia and Herzegovina went to the polls on Sunday to elect the three members of the state presidency and 42 members of the House of Representatives, alongside entity-level contests. AFP said the campaign was dominated by parties tied to the ethnic divisions of the 1990s war.
The presidency is split among Bosniak, Serb and Croat members. Concurrent votes choose 98 seats in the Federation legislature and, in Republika Srpska, an entity president and 83 assembly seats.
AFP reported that Milorad Dodik told a final SNSD rally in Banja Luka that Bosnia and Herzegovina was an impossible country. Researcher Adnan Cerimagic of the European Stability Initiative told AFP it was not impossible for opposition candidate Branko Blanusa to beat Dodik-backed Savo Minic for the Republika Srpska presidency.
Voting started late at dozens of polling stations because of technical problems as the country used biometric identification and ballot scanning for the first time. Polls were due to close at 7 p.m. local time, 17:00 GMT, with first results expected late Sunday.
No official partial results were available in the morning AFP account. The next confirmed step is the close of polls and the first published returns.
People Sentiments Mixed
- Dodik told supporters Bosnia and Herzegovina is an impossible country, AFP reported.
- A voter told AFP the situation had in some ways never been worse.