Bosnia election: Growing ethnic tensions dominate polls

Politics 09:00 03.10.2022
Bosnia’s polls closed in a contest between entrenched nationalists and economy-focused reformists.
 
Election authorities said 35 percent of nearly 3.4 million people eligible to vote turned out on Sunday to cast their ballots by 3pm (13:00 GMT) with the first official results expected in the coming hours. 
 
Despite reports of irregularities and the detention of some people over ballot fraud, officials said the vote proceeded in a satisfactory manner.
 
Bosnia is going through its worst political crisis since the end of its war in the 1990s, prompted by separatist policies of the Serb leadership and threats of blockades by Bosnian Croats.
 
Voters cast ballots for the three members of Bosnia’s tripartite presidency, members of parliament, and the president of the country’s Republika Srpska.
 
Some 90 political parties have fielded their candidates with another 17 candidates running as independents.
 
Nearly three decades after war ravaged the Balkan country, Bosnia continues to be burdened by its ethnic divisions.
 
It has been governed by a dysfunctional administrative system created by the 1995 Dayton Agreement that succeeded in ending the conflict in the 1990s but has largely failed in providing a framework for the country’s political development.
 
The peace agreement divided the country into two highly independent governing entities: the Republika Srpska – which has a predominantly Serb population – and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is shared by Bosniaks and Croats.
 
The two entities have broad autonomy but are linked by shared national institutions. All countrywide actions require consensus from all three ethnic groups.
 
In the war’s wake, ethnic political parties have long exploited the country’s divisions in a bid to maintain power.
 
“People are not being represented equally and our democracy and our sovereignty is always being challenged by the others,” Ena Porca, a first-time voter told Al Jazeera.

 


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