Reuters: Leftist and nationalists on track to win elections for Bosnia and Herzegovina’s three-member presidency

A moderate leftist from the Bosniak community, a pro-Russian Serbian nationalist, and a Croatian nationalist are leading in the elections for the multi-ethnic three-member presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the election commission announced on Monday morning, based on votes counted from 96.31 percent of polling stations, according to the British agency Reuters.

The results were largely in line with expectations and forecasts from the monitoring platform Poliwave, although voter turnout was low—totaling 42.02 percent in the two entities of BiH: the Federation of BiH (with a Bosniak and Croatian majority) and Republika Srpska (with a Serbian majority). Voters also cast ballots for the national parliament, as well as in elections for government bodies in these two entities.

Voter dissatisfaction has increased due to the slowing economy, the slow pace of EU accession negotiations, and the prolonged political crisis in which dominant ethnic parties from both entities have repeatedly blocked decisions of the weak central government that connects them.

Denis Bećirović, a Bosniak from the Social Democratic Party (SDP BiH), won 26.78 percent of the votes in the Federation of BiH. In the Federation of BiH, Darijana Filipović, the new candidate of the nationalist and pro-European Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ BiH), also led with 13.89 percent of the votes, Reuters reports.

In Republika Srpska, Željka Cvijanović, the current member of the three-member presidency from the ranks of the Serbian and pro-Russian nationalist party Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD), won 55.41 percent of the votes, the election commission announced.

Speaking in Banja Luka, the largest city of Bosnian Serbs, Milorad Dodik—the “separatist and pro-Russian leader of the SNSD,” who visited Moscow last week and met with Russian President Vladimir Putin—said that his party’s candidate, Savo Minić, won the most votes for president of Republika Srpska.

BiH, which is struggling to recover after the war fought from 1992 to 1995, received candidate status for EU membership in December 2022, as well as approval to begin accession negotiations in 2024.

However, actual negotiations have not yet begun because domestic legislative bodies have yet to meet key requirements, such as strengthening judicial oversight and adopting anti-corruption laws.

Many voters in the country of 3.4 million inhabitants said they want to move beyond divisive rhetoric, but the political situation in the country has reached a deadlock.

European Union (EU) and Russia are competing for influence in BiH. The EU seeks to expand its membership to the Western Balkans, while Russia wants to slow that process and maintain its influence over Republika Srpska.

The United States is also seeking to strengthen its influence in Bosnia, advocating for a $1.5 billion gas pipeline project to import American liquefied natural gas.

However, the EU has indicated that the selection of the company for this project was conducted with a lack of transparency and competitiveness, while Washington and Brussels have also diverged in their views on the role of the High Representative, the international peace overseer in the country, Reuters added.