Milorad Dodik was not on the ballot in Bosnia and Herzegovina on Sunday. His party still appears to have won.
Preliminary results from the general election show Dodik’s Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) keeping its hold on the Serb-dominated Republika Srpska. According to Al Jazeera, citing AFP, AP and Reuters, the SNSD’s Zeljka Cvijanovic is set to retain the Serb seat in the country’s three-member presidency. Dodik is banned from public office after a conviction.
The count is not final. Euronews described the preliminary tally as still unclear, and final figures from the Central Election Commission are awaited.
What the early numbers show
Reuters reported that, with ballots counted from more than 90% of polling stations, three candidates led the presidency races. They were a left-leaning moderate Bosniak, a pro-Russian Serb nationalist and a Croat nationalist. The Bosniak is incumbent Denis Becirovic. The Serb is Cvijanovic, and the Croat is Darijana Filipovic of the HDZ-BiH.
In Republika Srpska, the election commission said Cvijanovic had 55.34% of the vote, Reuters reported. Dodik also said his party’s candidate, Savo Minic, had won the most votes for president of the entity. Those figures were preliminary.
Turnout was low. Reuters put it at a combined 42.2% across the country’s two entities, the Bosniak-Croat Federation and Republika Srpska. For comparison, the 2022 vote drew about 51%, according to the figures on the 2022 election’s reference page. Türkiye Today also described a sharp fall from the previous election.
About 3.4 million people were eligible to vote. They were choosing the three presidency members, national legislators and the leaders of the two entities.
Dodik’s message
Speaking in Banja Luka, Dodik called the result “unexpectedly high” and said the party had won both the presidency seat and the entity presidency. Al Jazeera reported him saying that no one should ask his party to change its politics. He also praised US President Donald Trump’s 2024 election victory and thanked Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Dodik had visited Moscow and met Putin the week before the vote, according to Reuters. Reuters describes him as a separatist and pro-Russian leader. His supporters would likely describe him as a defender of Serb interests within Bosnia’s system. The sources do not include a direct response from his critics on election night.
Euronews quoted analyst Dragan Bursac, who argued that the ban is not working and that Dodik is exploiting it. Dodik was off the ballot for the first time in almost 30 years, but according to Bursac he is still in command and is present across the country’s media. Euronews says the ban followed his conviction for defying the international envoy who oversees the peace agreement.
A system built in 1995
Bosnia’s structure comes from the Dayton accord, the US-brokered deal that ended the war in 1995. It split the country into two entities linked by a weak central government and a presidency shared among Bosniak, Serb and Croat members, Reuters noted.
Türkiye Today called the vote a major test of that power-sharing arrangement. Al Jazeera said the result leaves a party that has repeatedly challenged state institutions in a strong position.
The Euronews report framed the vote alongside a stalled bid to join the European Union. Voters also voiced frustration with the political class. Al Jazeera quoted one assessment that the choice was limited to parties that have been around for 30 years. A voter in Mostar told Euronews that nothing had improved since he first voted, and that politicians live well while everyone else struggles.
What is still open
Several things are unresolved. The commission’s final figures could shift margins, especially in the closer races. Reuters said the results were broadly in line with projections from the Poliwave tracking platform. The sources do not report formal complaints or challenges, and it is not yet clear how the new presidency will work together.
The presidency’s three members rotate the chair. Whether a Dodik-aligned member and a Bosniak moderate can cooperate on the EU question is a matter the sources raise but do not answer.