Serb separatist Dodik declares victory in Bosnia vote as ethnic tensions and EU hopes collide

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina — Bosnian Serb nationalist politician Milorad Dodik has declared victory for his party in an election in Bosnia-Herzegovina on Sunday that was shaped by economic pressures, the prospect of the Balkan nation joining the European Union and ethnic tensions that have divided the country since its 1992-95 war.

Dodik is a staunchly pro-Russia politician who, despite not appearing on the ballot, has dominated the campaign and inflamed divisions with separatist rhetoric that have sparked fears of renewed instability in the country.

Formerly the president of the nation’s Serb-majority entity of Republika Srpska, Dodik was banned from holding public office after being convicted last year of defying decisions by the international envoy overseeing the 1995 peace agreement that ended the war.

With nearly 90% of votes counted, Dodik’s ally Zeljka Cvijanovic of the right-wing Alliance of Independent Social Democrats had more than 55% of votes to take one of the three seats in the country’s tripartite presidency, leading her nearest opponent by around 30 percentage points.

Speaking at a news conference late Sunday, Dodik said his nationalist party would also hold the “vast majority” in Republika Srpska’s assembly, and credited President Trump’s “magnificent victory” in 2024 and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s support for the election win.

“No one should ask us to change our politics,” Dodik said. “We will not give up, but continue for our people. … I cannot believe that we smashed it like this.”

Around 3.4 million voters were eligible to choose the three members of the country’s multi-ethnic presidency, lawmakers for the national parliament, and heads of institutions for the country’s two entities: the Muslim-majority Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Republika Srpska, which is dominated by ethnic Serbs.

With more than 94% of votes counted on Sunday, Darijana Filipovic of the nationalist Croatian Democratic Union of Bosnia and Herzegovina held a commanding lead for the Croat seat on the presidency, while incumbent Bosniak member of the presidency Denis Becirovic of the Social Democratic Party led his nearest opponent, Bakir Izetbegovic, by fewer than three percentage points.

Both Filipovic and Becirovic declared victory in their races late Sunday before all votes were counted.

Bosnia’s Central Election Commission said that 1,432,269 votes were cast in all, a turnout of 42% that was down by around 8% from Bosnia’s last election in 2022.

Bosnia-Herzegovina has a complex web of governing institutions that were created by a U.S.-brokered peace agreement in 1995 in an effort to manage the ethnic divisions among Muslim Bosniaks, Orthodox Serbs and Catholic Croats that gave rise to the war.

Yet Dodik has consistently tested those limits, openly defying Bosnia’s national government in the capital, Sarajevo, and making moves for Republika Srpska to separate from the country.

At his party’s final election rally Friday night in Banja Luka, Republika Srpska’s administrative capital, Dodik told supporters that Bosnia-Herzegovina “is dead.”

“It is an impossible country. It doesn’t make any sense,” Dodik said at the rally, which was also attended by Russian Ambassador Igor Khalabukov.

Such political and ethnic divisions — in which the country’s Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats largely vote along ethnic lines — have blocked Bosnia’s progress toward joining the European Union despite the bloc’s efforts to encourage the country’s divided leaders to work together for reform.

Dragan Bursac, an analyst, said that despite Dodik not appearing on the ballot for the first time in nearly 30 years, he “is still in command. He is everywhere.”

“It is obvious that these measures to ban him from political life are not working, and he is using them,” Bursac said.

One of the poorest countries in Europe, Bosnia-Herzegovina is still struggling to recover decades after the war that started in 1992, after the country declared independence from the Serb-led Yugoslavia and ethnic Serbs took up arms to carve out their own state and join Serbia. The conflict killed more than 100,000 people and displaced millions.

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

Bosnian Serbs view Mladic as a hero despite his conviction by a U.N. court over the massacre of more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica in 1995, and other atrocities.

Sunday’s election was the first time Bosnia used electronic identification of voters and ballot scanners to prevent irregularities or organized voter manipulation, which have cast doubt on the fairness of previous elections.

On Sunday morning, Associated Press journalists reported seeing multiple polling places where voting couldn’t begin on time because of difficulties with the new digital technology. Bosnia’s election commission announced late Sunday that some polling stations that had experienced disruptions earlier in the day would be permitted to remain open past the 7 p.m. cutoff.

Some voters in Banja Luka expressed concern Sunday that the new digital systems could confuse older voters. Republika Srpska’s Interior Ministry said in a statement that of 1,957 polling stations in the entity, there had been delays at 201.

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