Elections leave Bosnia-Herzegovina mired in ethnic divisions, complicating EU path

Filed 9h ago · Via Courthouse News · The Buffoon Desk

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Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Tamanoeconomico · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

Sunday's Bosnia-Herzegovina elections strengthened Serb nationalists in Republika Srpska and returned Croat nationalists to the tripartite presidency, with turnout falling to 42%, down 9.5 points from 2022. Milorad Dodik's Alliance of Independent Social Democrats won about 39% of the vote for the Republika Srpska assembly despite Dodik himself being banned from public office since August 2025 over secessionist activity deemed a threat to the Dayton peace agreement.

Dodik credited President Trump, who lifted Biden-era sanctions against him, for the party's showing, and separately thanked Vladimir Putin, whom he visited in Moscow days before the vote. His ally Savo Minić is expected to become the next Republika Srpska president, while Željka Cvijanović looks set for a second term as the Serb member of the national presidency.

Pro-EU officials in Sarajevo, Brussels, and Washington had hoped Dodik's ban would cool secessionist sentiment; the results suggest otherwise, complicating Bosnia's long-stalled EU membership path.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

Banning a man from office and then watching his party win anyway is a bit like telling a dog it can't come in the house and finding it curled up on the couch the next morning. Lifting sanctions on someone and then getting publicly thanked for it by name isn't subtle diplomacy, it's a receipt. Bosnia's constitutional order was built to keep the country from flying apart, and this week it got tested by two men who'd rather see it split than fixed.

Source: Read the original at Courthouse News → Scored: The Show Must Be Go · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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