The Chamber That Comes First

Bosnia and Herzegovina voted on Sunday 4 October. Of the 3,414,364 voters on the Central Voter Register, about 42 per cent turned out, according to preliminary figures reported by European Western Balkans and an analysis by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, which puts turnout in 2022 at “just above 50 percent”. The Central Election Commission has published preliminary results. None of the sources reviewed reports that it has certified them, and every figure below is preliminary.

Milorad Dodik, the leader of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD), told supporters on election night that the party had won both the Serb seat on the state presidency and the presidency of Republika Srpska, EUalive reported with the Beta agency. He was on the ballot for neither. The SNSD’s candidates were Željka Cvijanović for the presidency seat and Savo Minić for president of the entity. In the Commission’s first update Minić had 202,245 votes to 160,935 for Branko Blanuša of the Serb Democratic Party, European Western Balkans reported, and Blanuša has since conceded. A party leader can declare a result. The winners, in law, are the candidates and the lists.

Why Dodik was not a candidate

The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina convicted Dodik in February 2025 of defying decisions of the international High Representative, sentencing him to a year in prison and barring him for six years from performing the duties of Republika Srpska president, France 24 reported. An appeal panel upheld the verdict on 1 August 2025 and the Central Election Commission ended his mandate on 6 August; the prison term was later converted to a fine, and an early election for the entity presidency followed in November 2025, according to the summary compiled on Wikipedia. He remains the leader of the party.

What the count settles, and what it does not

The three members of the state presidency are directly elected, so the count settles them once it is certified. The Foundation lists the incumbent Bosniak member Denis Bećirović, Cvijanović for the Serb seat and Darijana Filipović of the HDZ BiH for the Croat seat. In the 42-seat state House of Representatives it gives the SDA nine seats, the SNSD six, the SDP five and the HDZ BiH four.

In Republika Srpska the shares matter less than the mandates. With nearly 87 per cent of ballots counted for the 83-seat National Assembly, the SNSD stood on 38.93 per cent and Draško Stanivuković’s Movement for a Safe Srpska on 14.19 per cent, EUalive reported, while diaspora ballots could still lift the Coalition for the State, on 2.76 per cent, over the three per cent threshold. Dodik has said the governing bloc could command a two-thirds majority in the Assembly; the Foundation notes that the distribution of mandates was not confirmed. Two-thirds of 83 is 56 seats, this publication’s arithmetic, and on 38.93 per cent of the vote the SNSD would need partners to reach it.

The chamber that comes first

The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the entity shared by Bosniaks and Croats, does not elect its executive directly. The Foundation sets out the sequence. After certification, the ten cantonal assemblies have 30 days to elect their delegates to the Federation House of Peoples. If a canton does not elect delegates from one of the constituent peoples, or from the group of “Others”, in that time, the seats can be reassigned under the Election Law. Once the House of Peoples is constituted, the two chambers of the Federation Parliament elect a president and two vice-presidents, and the president, with the agreement of both vice-presidents, appoints the Federation government.

The Foundation expects “several months” to pass before that chamber is constituted. The 30 days run from certification, not from election night, and no certification date had been announced in the sources reviewed.

Why the state level waits too

The Federation chamber also stocks the state one. Under Article IV of the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the state House of Peoples has 15 delegates, two-thirds from the Federation and one-third, five Serbs, from Republika Srpska. “The designated Croat and Bosniac Delegates from the Federation shall be selected, respectively, by the Croat and Bosniac Delegates to the House of Peoples of the Federation,” and the Serb delegates by the Republika Srpska National Assembly. Nine members make a quorum, provided at least three Bosniak, three Croat and three Serb delegates are present, and “all legislation shall require the approval of both chambers.”

So until the Federation House of Peoples sits, the state House of Peoples cannot be completed, and no state law can pass. The same parties bargain at cantonal, entity and state level at once, the Foundation says, so coalition arrangements are likely to be interconnected and the preliminary results give only a partial picture of the eventual majorities. On its account, the decisive bargaining follows the indirect election rather than the vote.

Željko Komšić, who has held the Croat seat on the presidency since 2018 and was not a candidate for it this time, failed to win a seat in the state parliament and said the results showed “ethnic homogenisation”, EUalive reported, while calling the elections fair. Counted ballots can show that. They cannot yet seat a chamber, and the clock that will seat one has not started.

Sources

The register total and the Minić and Blanuša figures are from European Western Balkans; turnout is from European Western Balkans and the Friedrich Naumann Foundation. Dodik’s claims, the National Assembly shares and Komšić’s remarks are from EUalive, with Beta. The presidency and House of Representatives results, the two-thirds remark and the Federation sequence are from the Foundation’s analysis of 6 October. The 2025 conviction is from France 24; the later steps in the case are from the Wikipedia summary. The state House of Peoples provisions are quoted from Annex 4 of the Dayton agreement as published by the Office of the High Representative. The arithmetic is this publication’s.