Bosnians vote in high-stakes election that could reshape the country's EU path

Voters across Bosnia and Herzegovina cast ballots on Sunday in a general election that will determine the country's three-member state presidency, its 42-seat national parliament, the governments of its two semi-autonomous entities, and — in the race being watched most closely — who will lead Republika Srpska, the Serb-run half of the country once dominated by Milorad Dodik. The vote is the first since Mr Dodik was convicted of defying international peace overseers and barred from political office, and it lands at a moment when Bosnia has no fully functioning state-level government and its long-stalled bid to join the European Union remains frozen.

Bosnia's Central Election Commission formally called the vote for October 4 earlier this year, setting in motion a campaign that unfolded against a backdrop of ethnic polarisation and renewed questions about whether the country's Dayton-era constitutional order can hold.

What is on the ballot

Voters are choosing the Bosniak, Croat and Serb members of the tripartite state presidency, all 42 seats in the state House of Representatives, the parliaments and governments of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republika Srpska, ten cantonal assemblies in the Federation, and — for the first time since his removal — a new president of Republika Srpska. The incumbent Bosniak and Serb presidency members, Denis Bećirović and Željka Cvijanović, are both seeking re-election, facing challengers including former presidency member Bakir Izetbegović. In Republika Srpska, the contest has narrowed to Siniša Karan, the candidate of Mr Dodik's ruling SNSD party, against Branko Blanuša, an electrical-engineering professor fielded as the joint candidate of a unified opposition bloc.

The numbers

More than 3.3 million people were on the electoral register, with 22 of the 42 House of Representatives seats needed to form a governing majority at the state level, according to the full slate of registered candidates and offices up for election. The OSCE's election observation mission, led by Tana de Zulueta, opened in Sarajevo on August 20 with a 13-member core team, expanded to 26 long-term observers from 23 OSCE states by late August, and brought in roughly 300 short-term observers for election day itself. Separately, the European Parliament voted 478 to 116, with 54 abstentions, in June to adopt a resolution on Bosnia's membership progress that reaffirmed support for accession while demanding an end to obstruction of state institutions.

How the country got here

Bosnia has been governed since 1995 under the Dayton peace accords, which split the country into the Bosniak-Croat Federation and Republika Srpska under a weak central state overseen by an internationally appointed High Representative. Mr Dodik, who had led Republika Srpska for most of the past two decades, was convicted by the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina in February 2025 of defying decisions issued by the High Representative. An appeals court upheld the one-year sentence and six-year political ban in August 2025, and election authorities subsequently stripped Mr Dodik of the Republika Srpska presidency. The crisis deepened in January 2025 when the reformist "Troika" parties withdrew from the governing coalition, citing the SNSD's refusal to pass EU-mandated legislation, leaving Bosnia without a fully functioning state government heading into Sunday's vote.

Who is affected

The result will shape daily governance for all three of Bosnia's constituent peoples and determine whether Brussels has a credible partner on the European Commission's own assessment of the country's readiness for membership talks, which formally opened in March 2024 but have made little concrete progress since. In Republika Srpska, opposition parties rallied for months around a single candidate specifically to try to end SNSD's dominance; the race has been framed domestically as a referendum on whether the entity continues down the confrontational path associated with Mr Dodik or pivots toward Sarajevo and the EU.

"Our observation mission will assess the electoral process in Bosnia and Herzegovina against OSCE commitments and other international obligations and standards for democratic elections," said Tana de Zulueta, head of the OSCE's monitoring mission.

What happens next

Polling stations were due to close at 7pm local time, with partial results typically beginning to emerge overnight and the Central Election Commission issuing preliminary figures in the following days, according to N1 BiH's own reporting on the vote. The OSCE mission is expected to deliver its initial findings at a joint press conference the day after the vote, with a full final report to follow months later. Whoever wins the Republika Srpska presidency and the Serb seat on the state presidency will inherit the question of whether to resume cooperation with Sarajevo and Brussels or continue the confrontation that defined the Dodik era.