Bosnia votes as pro-Russian politician looms large over race and stalled EU bid dominate election

Polls opened Sunday in Bosnia's general election, where some 3.4 million voters are choosing the three members of the multi-ethnic presidency, national lawmakers, and leaders of the country's two entities: the Muslim-majority Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Serb-dominated Republika Srpska.

The complex system of institutions was created by the US-brokered 1995 peace agreement to manage divisions among Muslim Bosniaks, Orthodox Serbs and Catholic Croats.

Early reports show voting was delayed at several polling places due to problems with new digital voting technology, which was introduced to address earlier concerns about vote tampering. Polls close at 7 pm. local time.

The election comes as many citizens in the multiethnic Balkan state face everyday problems, while some leading politicians stoke the war-era tensions that have kept the country divided since the 1992-95 conflict.

New election security measures

For the first time, authorities are using electronic voter identification and ballot scanning to curb the irregularities and organised manipulation that undermined confidence in earlier elections.

Most of the 75 parties running are organised along ethnic lines. The Bosniak nationalist Party of Democratic Action has campaigned on keeping Bosnia united against Serb separatism, while many Bosnian Croats back ethnic parties such as the local branch of Croatia's ruling Croatian Democratic Union.

Izetbegovic, who was beaten by Becirovic in 2022, is seeking a third term as president of the centre-right SDA, the largest Bosniak party in the nation.

Many disillusioned citizens say politicians use nationalism to avoid tackling real problems like low living standards and the exodus of young people. Mostar voter Ivan Silic said nothing has improved since he first voted and that politicians live well while everyone else's situation stays the same.

Dodik looms large despite not being on the ballot

Despite not being on the ballot, the campaign has been dominated by Milorad Dodik, the pro-Russian, separatist former president of Republika Srpska. Dodik is banned from public office after being convicted of defying the international envoy who oversees the peace agreement.

Fresh from meeting Russia's president Vladimir Putin in Moscow, Dodik leads a party, the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats, that is likely to win in Republika Srpska.

At a final rally Friday in Banja Luka, attended by Russia's ambassador, Igor Khalabukov, Dodik declared Bosnia is "dead" and "an impossible country". "It doesn't make any sense," he stressed.

Off the ballot for the first time in almost 30 years, he is still in command and is present across the country's media, says Dragan Bursac, an analyst. In Bursac's view, the ban is not working, and Dodik is exploiting it.

Ethnic tensions continue to rise

Bosnia has been peaceful in recent years, but its politicians have kept ethnic divisions alive. Bosnian Serb leaders such as Dodik have pushed for their entity to break away, raising Western fears of renewed instability.

The Balkan nation remains one of Europe's poorest countries, still recovering from a war that began after it declared independence from Serb-led Yugoslavia and ethnic Serbs took up arms to carve out their own state. That conflict killed more than 100,000 people and displaced millions.

The country is formally seeking European Union membership, but progress has stalled despite EU efforts to push its leaders toward reform.

Major powers continue to influence socio-economic and political life in the small Balkan nation. Russia is holding down the EU's efforts to expand its membership throughout the Balkans, including Bosnia, while continuing to back the Republika Srpska.

While a $1.5 billion pipeline project to import US liquefied natural gas is being pushed by a corporation with ties to the Trump administration as part of the US's efforts to gain influence.

And recently, wartime wounds were reopened by public tributes in Serbia and among Bosnian Serbs to Ratko Mladic, the wartime army commander who died in late August while serving a life sentence for genocide and other war crimes.

Bosnian Serbs regard him as a hero, despite his UN court conviction over the killing of more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica in 1995.

Senior Bosnian Serb officials attended his funeral in Belgrade, drawing sharp EU criticism and angering Bosniak politicians.