Bosnia and Herzegovina’s general elections on 4 October produced an unusual result: the country has taken a significant step forward in how votes are cast and counted, without fundamentally changing who holds political power. The familiar names remain at the centre. The Serb nationalist Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD), led by the pro-Russian separatist leader Milorad Dodik, retains its dominant position in the Republika Srpska, the Bosnian entity, ; the Croat nationalist party Croatian Democratic Union of Bosnia and Herzegovina (HDZ BiH) is set to regain the Croat seat in the three-member Presidency; and the Social Democratic Party of Bosnia and Herzegovina (SDP BiH) has retained the Bosniak seat through Denis Bećirović.

Meanwhile, politics in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina has become more fragmented, with the centre-right Party for Bosnia and Herzegovina (SBiH) making a strong comeback.

For the first time nationwide, biometric voter identification, ballot scanners and electronic transmission of results were used. Preliminary turnout was around 42 per cent, significantly below 2022. The paradox is striking: Bosnia and Herzegovina has made it harder to manipulate the vote, but it has not yet made the vote powerful enough to transform its politics.

From the 2022 opening to the 2026 election

To understand this election, it is necessary to look back at the 2022 elections. Back then, an unusual political experiment was opened. The centre-left SDP, the centre-right Narod i Pravda (People and Justice, NiP) and the liberal Naša stranka (Our Party) formed the ‘Trojka’ – three parties seeking to challenge the long-standing dominance of the nationalist and conservative Party of Democratic Action (SDA) and offer a more functional, reform-oriented alternative. At the state level, the Trojka entered government with HDZ BiH and SNSD. For a moment, Bosnia appeared to have moved beyond the familiar pattern of nationalist parties dominating political competition and government formation.

There were tangible breakthroughs. In March 2024, the European Council decided to open accession negotiations with Bosnia and Herzegovina, subject to the completion of the necessary steps. But the coalition deteriorated. In January 2025, the Trojka formally broke with SNSD as disputes over EU-related legislation developed into a deeper constitutional confrontation.

The crisis intensified after Dodik was convicted in the first instance for failing to implement a decision by the international High Representative and subsequently barred from public office. Yet the 2026 election showed that removing one politician from the ballot is not the same as removing his political machinery. The question is whether the realignment that began in 2022 created a durable alternative or simply another electoral cycle.

A country built around political balance

Bosnia and Herzegovina is not organised as a conventional centralised European state. Under the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement, the country consists of two largely autonomous entities: the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, predominantly inhabited by Bosniaks and Croats, and the Bosnian Serb entity, Republika Srpska. The state itself has a relatively weak central level of government, while many powers remain at the entity-, and, in the federation, the cantonal level.

The state presidency has three members: one Bosniak and one Croat elected from the federation, and one Serb elected from Republika Srpska. The system was designed after the war to prevent any one group from dominating the others, but it also means political competition remains heavily structured around ethnicity: Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs. In Bosnia, an election is therefore never only about who governs. It is also about who represents whom, where power sits and how much power the state itself should have.

The presidency and the next government

The Presidency is set to retain two of its three members: Željka Cvijanović of SNSD as the Serb member and Denis Bećirović of SDP BiH as the Bosniak member. Darijana Filipović of HDZ BiH is set to take the Croat seat from Željko Komšić from the civic, centre-left Democratic Front (DF). The configuration matters because of the close political relationship between SNSD and HDZ BiH. Both have consistently defended strong ethnic representation within Bosnia’s constitutional system and cooperated on questions concerning the distribution of powers.

The presidency nominates the Chair of the Council of Ministers, Bosnia’s state-level government, subject to confirmation by the House of Representatives. Bećirović will therefore be one of the three presidency members involved in the next phase of government formation.

Social Democracy’s harder test

For SDP BiH, the election marks the beginning of a more demanding political phase. In 2022, the party entered government, promising that Bosnia could be governed through compromise and functionality rather than permanent confrontation. There have been tangible results under the SDP-led Federation government: the minimum net wage in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina was raised from 619 to 1,000 convertible marks (KM) in 2025 and to 1,027 KM in 2026. Pension increases, labour-market measures and the introduction of a non-working Sunday gave SDP policies a direct impact on citizens’ lives.

These same issues were also prominent in the campaign for the recent elections, a significant fact in a country where elections remain dominated by constitutional and ethnic questions. But SDP has not displaced SDA as the largest political force among the electorate it competes for. Preliminary results point to SDA remaining ahead in both the state and federation parliamentary contests, while SDP remains one of the central political actors.

The SDP must now defend an actual governing record: what it delivered, what it compromised on and what it could not change. Its future will depend on whether policies on wages, pensions and labour rights can become part of a broader programme connecting social protection with economic development, public services, democratic reform and European integration.

The Trojka is no longer enough

The three Trojka parties remain important, but their combined position is weaker than after 2022. The strong return of SBiH is one of the election’s notable developments. It has emerged as a potentially important coalition partner at both federation and state level. For SDP, the question is therefore not simply whether to preserve the Trojka as a political brand, but whether it remains the most effective vehicle for the political project that brought these parties together. And even if the Trojka is kept alive: a coalition can survive institutionally while losing its political purpose.

SNSD survives the Dodik crisis

The result in Republika Srpska is equally significant. Dodik was not on the ballot after being barred from public office, yet the political system he built has demonstrated considerable resilience. SNSD remains the dominant political force in Republika Srpska, while its candidate Savo Minić was leading the entity’s presidential election with around 52 per cent in preliminary results.

The opposition made gains, but not enough to change the overall balance, and the result clearly shows that SNSD’s electoral strength cannot be reduced to Dodik alone. Despite international pressure and the constitutional crisis of 2025, the party has retained its institutional infrastructure and electoral base. For the opposition, the challenge is larger than defeating Dodik: it must offer credible answers on employment, public services, corruption and economic development while competing with a political machine built over decades.

HDZ BiH and the politics of representation

HDZ BiH’s return to the Croat seat in the Presidency also strengthens its position. Led by Dragan Čović, HDZ BiH has long been the dominant political representative of Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Its central demand has been ‘legitimate representation’ of the constituent peoples, including changes to the electoral system to ensure that Croat representatives are selected primarily by Croat voters. Together with SNSD’s continued dominance in Republika Srpska, this creates a state-level configuration in which two powerful ethnic parties have significant incentives to coordinate.

Excluding SNSD from government is mathematically possible, but parliamentary arithmetic is not the same as political feasibility. Given the long-standing SNSD-HDZ BiH relationship, a government without SNSD would most probably face significant obstacles.

Europe has become less visible

One of the most striking features of the campaign was the limited role of EU integration. Bosnia and Herzegovina received EU candidate status in 2022, and the European Council decided in March 2024 to open accession negotiations, subject to the necessary steps. Yet, the negotiating framework has still not been adopted, neither have substantive accession talks begun. The slow pace of reform has weakened the mobilising power of EU integration.

For progressive parties such as SDP, European integration cannot remain an abstract promise made in Brussels. It needs to connect to issues voters experience directly: higher wages, better public services, functioning institutions, the rule of law and economic opportunities. Otherwise, the EU risks becoming increasingly distant from everyday political competition in Bosnia.

The technological revolution at the ballot box

The most concrete democratic reform tested in these elections was technological. For the first time, biometric voter identification, ballot scanners and electronic transmission of results were used nationwide, following pilot projects during the 2024 local elections. Biometric identification makes it more difficult to vote in another person’s name, and scanners create a digital record of ballots and facilitate aggregation, while electronic transmission reduces some opportunities for manipulation between polling stations and the central count.

The system functioned sufficiently to allow the election to proceed, but technical and procedural problems were significant. OSCE/ODIHR observers reported shortcomings in the secrecy of the vote, difficulties with the new devices and significant procedural omissions at a number of polling stations. At the same time, discrepancies between manual and electronic counts were minor.

Traditional forms of electoral malpractice also remain relevant. Observers and domestic monitoring groups reported procedural violations and concerns over the misuse of public resources. SNSD repeatedly questioned the new technologies during the campaign, with Dodik alleging that electronic systems could facilitate manipulation, even as the party subsequently claimed victory under the new system.

The reform therefore improved the mechanics of voting and counting without eliminating the wider pressures and vulnerabilities that shape elections.

A more secure ballot, but fewer voters

Official turnout was around 42 per cent, compared with approximately 50 per cent in 2022. Some of the apparent decline may reflect the removal of forms of proxy or impersonation voting that the new identification system was designed to prevent. But it would be premature to attribute the scale of the decline to technology alone. Bosnia’s voters register also does not perfectly correspond to the population actually living in the country, particularly because of a sustained emigration.

Political disengagement is another important factor. The election produced a more secure voting process without producing greater participation. The technology made the ballot harder to manipulate, but it did not make politics more compelling to voters. That points towards the deeper challenge facing Bosnia’s democracy: not simply whether votes are counted correctly, but whether citizens still believe that voting can change anything.

What comes next?

The 2026 election has not produced a fundamental political realignment. SNSD remains dominant in Republika Srpska, HDZ BiH is set to regain the Croat Presidency seat, SDA remains a major force in the Federation and SDP remains a central political actor. What happens next will depend on coalition bargaining – and whether these parties can translate electoral arithmetic into a functioning government. The relationship between SNSD and HDZ BiH will be particularly important at the state level, while the future of the Trojka and the rise of SBiH could reshape politics in the federation.

For SDP, this is the moment when its political experiment enters a more demanding phase. Its record on wages, pensions and workers’ rights gives it a tangible Social-Democratic offer, but its challenge is to turn that record into a broader alternative connecting social protection and economic opportunity with democratic reform and European integration.

The election has produced a clearer ballot without a clear political break, and Bosnia’s institutions are becoming more capable of ensuring the vote is secure, but the harder question is whether its political system can give voters a reason to believe that voting still matters. For Bosnia, and for the European Union, that remains the real test.

Photo credits: Shutterstock / Mete H