Bosnia & Herzegovina goes to the polls on October 4, when around 3.4mn voters will elect the three members of the state presidency, deputies to the state, entity and cantonal parliaments and the president of Republika Srpska. 

The campaign has been dominated by ethnic identity rather than the issues voters say they care about most: prices, wages, jobs, corruption and the emigration that has cost the country about one in six of its residents in a decade.

It takes place at a time when the consensus that has long enforced the post-war order is broken, with Western powers no longer in agreement on how to enforce the Dayton peace agreement that ended the 1992-95 war. 

"Bosnia and Herzegovina will hold general elections on October 4 amid a prolonged institutional crisis and without an international envoy," the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) said in a paper published ahead of the vote. 

"The current diplomatic impasse between its European and American partners has broken Western consensus, undermining the enforcement of the country's postwar constitutional order."

 Multi-layered election 

The scale of the October 4 general elections reflects the complex power-sharing structure in Bosnia. Bosnia is divided into two entities, the Serb-majority Republika Srpska and the Bosniak-Croat Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, plus the self-governing Brcko District, with a total of 14 governments and parliaments at state, entity and cantonal level.

The state presidency has three members, one for each constituent people: the Serb member is elected by voters in Republika Srpska, while the Bosniak and Croat members are elected in the Bosnian Federation. Voters also choose the 42-seat state House of Representatives, the Federation's parliament, the National Assembly of Republika Srpska, the Federation's 10 cantonal assemblies and the president of Republika Srpska. 

In the race for the Bosniak seat in the tripartite presidency, incumbent Denis Becirovic of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) faces Bakir Izetbegovic of the Party of Democratic Action (SDA), the largest Bosniak party, as well as Semir Efendic of the Party for Bosnia and Herzegovina and Fahrudin Radoncic of the Union for a Better Future. The Croat seat is contested by Darijana Filipovic of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ BiH), Slaven Kovacevic of the Democratic Front and independent Zdenko Lucic. The Serb incumbent Željka Cvijanović of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) faces challenges from Nebojša Vukanović of For Justice and Order and Marinko Božović of the Serb Democratic Party (SDS). 

With a high level of power devolved to entity level, the vote in Bosnia's Serb entity, Republika Srpska, is arguably more closely watched than the race for the state-level presidency. 

The opposition has for the first time agreed on joint candidates to take on former president Milorad Dodik's SNSD. Branko Blanusa of the SDS, a professor at the University of Banja Luka, is running against Savo Minic, the entity's prime minister.

Dodik himself is not on the ballot. He was removed as Republika Srpska president in 2025 after being convicted of defying the international high representative and is banned from public office, but he remains SNSD leader and his son Igor heads the party's list in Banja Luka.

While published polling is scarce, a Metrics Consulting poll conducted on September 14-19 put Minic on 49% and Blanusa on 45% in the Republika Srpska presidential race, according to Europe Elects. That is consistent with how close the entity's last contest was: the SNSD's Sinisa Karan won the early presidential election that followed Dodik's removal by fewer than 11,000 votes, with 50.54% against 48.09% for Blanusa after a partial rerun in February.

The DGAP paper argues that the new technical safeguards could make a difference in the entity. "[I]mprovements to election integrity will jeopardise the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD), Milorad Dodik's party, which has spent almost two decades in power on the entity level in Republika Srpska," it says. "Now, the opposition parties, which have agreed to form a coalition, have a realistic chance to take power there." It adds that "the electoral outcome in this entity will be the key determining factor for Bosnia's EU trajectory".

Ethnic tensions within Bosnia

Ethnicity still decides most votes in Bosnia. Damir Kapidzic, professor of comparative politics at the University of Sarajevo, describes a "sub-divided party system" in which parties compete mainly for voters from their own group. 

"We do see the possibility of what I would not call a dramatic constitutional breakdown, but rather a slow death," he told the European Center for Populism Studies. In such a demise, institutions would stop working because government formation, regulatory bodies or judicial appointments are left unresolved.

The campaign opened in the shadow of the death of convicted war criminal Ratko Mladic. The political establishment of Republika Srpska attended his funeral in Belgrade on September 7, which the DGAP says "signals the continuation of ethno-national mobilisation across all parties in [Republika Srpska]", and Bosnia's foreign minister ordered expulsions of Serbian diplomats afterwards. 

The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe's (OSCE's) election observation arm, ODIHR, noted complaints against Republika Srpska politicians and candidates for "alleged glorification of a convicted war criminal" and said the vote was taking place in a "highly polarised environment".

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) delegation heard similar concerns. "Many interlocutors reported challenges to the constitutional order, especially stemming from divisive actions and rhetoric by political leaders in Republika Srpska," it said, listing "divisive rhetoric, hate speech, misuse of administrative resources, pressure put on civil servants, endemic corruption and clientelism" among the issues raised. It also pointed out that Bosnia still discriminates against citizens who do not belong to one of the three constituent peoples, in breach of European Court of Human Rights rulings. 

A broken Western consensus

The vote takes place without a permanent High Representative. Schmidt announced in May that he would step down, and Western capitals split over a successor after Washington backed retired Italian diplomat Antonio Zanardi Landi. A US diplomat, Louis Crishock, has been acting High Representative since June 30.

The DGAP traces the rift to a change in US policy under President Donald Trump, which since May has put "direct return" for American companies at the centre of its Western Balkans strategy. In 2025 Washington lifted sanctions on Dodik and his associates after he positioned himself "as a partner for future commercial deals in BiH", the paper says. 

"In the aftermath of these sensitive national elections, BiH will be further destabilised by weak, disjointed international oversight that is less capable of fixing domestic disputes," it warns, predicting a post-election period "again likely to be marked by crisis stemming from the protracted formation of a government".

Meanwhile, the current Bosnian Serb leadership continues to look to Moscow for support. Five days before the vote, Dodik and Minic met Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin. "We do not want foreign influence to be decisive. We want a fairer relationship with Serbs and the Serbian people. We want stability for the entire region. I sincerely wish you success," the Russian president said, according to the Republika Srpska government. Dodik, who has travelled to Moscow ahead of past elections, said it was his 29th meeting with Putin, and pledged that Bosnia would not impose sanctions on Russia or join Nato.

Bosnia's EU accession process

Bosnia won EU candidate status in 2022 and the green light to open accession negotiations in 2024, but the process has stalled. The country has still not appointed a chief negotiator and has not implemented any of the 113 reforms required for accession, Deutsche Welle reported, citing an independent analysis of EU progress reports that showed its readiness score falling from 4.14 to 2.91 out of ten in one year, the steepest fall of any candidate.

"Despite the optimism injected by the candidate status and the green light to start accession talks in 2024, Bosnia and Herzegovina's EU path remains stalled due to the institutional paralysis and domestic political disagreements over the implementation of the required reforms," a note from think-tank the European Policy Centre said. "Bosnia remains the only Balkan country that has not yet received Growth Plan funds."

Changes to voting procedures

This will be the first nationwide election in Bosnia to use biometric voter identification, a new ballot design and optical ballot scanners, introduced by amendments to the election law that the then high representative, Christian Schmidt, imposed in March 2024.

A pre-electoral delegation from PACE, which visited on September 15-17, welcomed the changes. The delegation "positively noted the recent amendments to the Election Law made by the High Representative in March 2024, which introduce significant technical and procedural safeguards aimed at strengthening electoral integrity and transparency," it said. It noted that most citizens and "the overwhelming majority of stakeholders, strongly support the introduction of new election technologies as a measure to prevent electoral irregularities", but that stakeholders "also expressed concern about the compressed implementation schedule".

The mission, headed by Tana de Zulueta, has 13 core experts and 26 long-term observers and plans to deploy 300 short-term observers for polling day. "Our observation mission will assess the electoral process in Bosnia and Herzegovina against OSCE commitments and other international obligations and standards for democratic elections," de Zulueta said when it opened on August 20.

To prepare voters, the CEC and the Council of Europe ran simulations at 77 locations in 63 cities and municipalities between late August and late September, letting citizens try the biometric identification and scanning process.