Bosnia and Herzegovina elections, 2 October 2022

[DavidB.]

I hadn't seen a thread on this yet, so here we go. Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) will go to elections next week for basically all supra-communal entities: the three federal presidency positions (one Bosniak, one Serb and one Croat), the federal parliament, the two entity parliaments (for the Federation of BiH and Republika Srpska) and the ten cantonal governments in the Federation.

BiH has long found itself in political deadlock. Tensions recently increased when High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina Christian Schmidt proposed to amend the electoral law in a way deemed negative for Bosniaks and beneficial to Croats, causing protests - the changes have not been implemented.

Croats, who do not have their own entity (while Serbs do) but are a minority in the Federation of BiH, will look anxiously at the presidential election. Last time around, Bosniaks massively voted in the Croat presidential election instead of the Bosniak one, causing "pro-BiH" Zeljko Komsic to win against former Croat member of the presidency and Croat nationalist Dragan Covic, who received a majority among actual Croats. A loophole in the Dayton agreement and form of minority disenfranchisement that could be repeated this time around, with Komsic running against HDZ BiH candidate Borjana Kristo this time - but if it is repeated, it would undoubtedly further decrease the legitimacy of the BiH state in the eyes of many Croats.

I have no idea what the state of the race in the Republika Srpska is, or what issues even matter there - but apparently it's going to be close.

[Frodo]

It is election day in Bosnia-Herzegovina, people!

Bosnians go to polls to choose between nationalists and reformists

[DavidB.]

Polls have closed. The Serb race for RS president seems too close to call, but Dodik's party compagnon Cvijanovic seems to be comfortably in the lead for the Serb position in the triumvirate. Bosniaks voted in the Croat election for liberal Komsic again - but apparently Croats returned the favor this time, voting in the Bosniak election for the moderate Bosniak candidate Becirovic over SDA candidate and former president Bakir Izetbegovic. In the Croat-supermajority place Livno, Becirovic apparently got 17.000 votes and HDZ candidate Borjana Kristo only 900. Seems like Croats thought there was no viable way for Kristo to win as Bosniaks would always outvote them. (EDIT: Apparently this was fake news by some Bosnian medium. Looking at the results page I actually don't see much evidence for Croats massively voting for Becirovic.)

The result will probably be a more moderate triumvirate, which could be beneficial to the "governability" of BiH.

Also, Christian Schmidt apparently chose the moment that the polls were closed to change the election law, which would apparently strengthen the Croat position (in practice HDZ's position).

[Frodo]

Bosnia Elects New Leaders as OHR Imposes New Election Rules
In elections in Bosnia on Sunday, Bosnian Serb strongman Milorad Dodik’s close ally, Zeljka Cvijanovic, looked set to take the Serbian seat on the state presidency, alongside current Croat incumbent Zeljko Komsic and Denis Becirovic for the Bosniaks.

[DavidB.]

In the end I think this solves the puzzle: SDA won the parliamentary election by a big margin, but many of their (Bosniak, conservative) voters ended up voting for Komsic in the Croat president election (instead of voting for Izetbegovic in the Bosniak election), while moderate and liberal Bosniaks voted for Becirovic in the Bosniak president election.

It makes sense: for Bosniaks who want the country to stay together, function a little better, and be led by Bosniaks, having Becirovic as president isn't much of a downgrade compared to Izetbegovic but having Komsic is a big upgrade compared to Kristo, whose election could very well have been the final nail in the coffin for BiH.

Meanwhile, Kristo got outvoted by Bosniaks. She's leading in the partial results that are in on the official website, but Croat areas are far ahead in the count while most Bosniak places haven't been counted yet.

In near-homogeneous Croat places in Herzegovina, I don't see much evidence for mass Croat Becirovic voting. Results for HDZ candidate Kristo are almost North Korean: 99.2% in Siroki Brijeg, 99.4% in Posusje, 98.7% in Ljubuski, 99.1% in Ravno, and 90.2% in Capljina (which has a small Bosniak minority), among others (to be clear, votes cast for Bosniak presidency candidates count to the 100% here too).

In the RS, both Dodik and Trivic are claiming victory for the RS presidency. Might get ugly.

[DavidB.]

Seems like Dodik will be elected president of RS after all. He was the Serb president in the triumvirate in the last 4 years, which is a different position.

[DavidB.]

As for parliament:

- Among Croats, HDZ seem on track for about 75-85% of the vote, HDZ1990 - a more moderate version and supposedly "anti-corruption" - 10-20% and others 5-10% at most.

- In the Republika Srpska, Dodik's SNSD are getting 40-45% and SDS about 20%. Most of the remainder of the vote is going to smaller parties which mostly seem to be additional flavors of Serb nationalism and conservatism - albeit in a rather wide range; the PDP, which is getting 30% in Banja Luka, seem more like your average Eastern European EPP party than Dodik-like. There are Bosniaks in the RS too, and they vote for their own parties. It seems as if Dodik's SNSD is doing slightly worse in the capital of Banja Luka (37.9%) than outside of it. Doboj, on the other hand, is a hotbed of SNSD support: 61.1%.

- The Bosniak political spectrum offers the most political plurality. SDA seem to be having a good election and are mostly doing well in the countryside, which is where more conservative, religious voters reside. In the region in which Sarajevo is located, Narod i Pravda are ahead, a Bosniak nationalist party and rather similar to SDA but secular. Moderates and liberals vote for the SDP, Zeljko Komsic' DF, or social liberal Our Party, which is leading in the center of Sarajevo with 26.5% and ahead of Narod i Pravda (only 33% counted yet). In the northwest, NES, another secular conservative party, are in second place (behind SDA) with almost 20% of the vote.

[Astatine]

While this election was certainly an embarrassment for SDA in the presidential race, this outcome was not unexpected. While Bećirović is a member of SDP, he got supported by a total of 11 parties. If we compare his result to the 2018 result of his + the 2 candidates of parties supporting his candidacy this time (SBB, SBiH), then it is not as outstanding – Last time around, they all received 50.1 % combined.

As David stated already, SDA is doing quite well across the regions. They might gain seats compared to last time around in the cantons, only Sarajevo was a massive failure for them. On the other hand, SDA beats SDP in Tuzla, which is believed to be a stronghold for the Social Democrats – Their decline continued, even though their presidential candidate won.

https://twitter.com/BiH_Elects/status/1577682820029448194

In the opposition-to-SDA camp, some shifts happened. NS, that saw an almost cometic rise after their breakthrough in 2018, especially in Sarajevo, where they won mayoral races back in 2020, couldn’t continue their growth. SBB is on track to irrelevancy, which now triggered Fahrudin Radončić’s resignation as leader, with most of their voters switching to NiP, same goes for PDA (SDA split) and NB (secular unitarists).

DF was surprisingly strong, after the few polls conducted suggesting their decline might continue and Komšić could be in serious trouble, given that it could have been that Bosniaks would rather vote out SDA than on the Croat ballot (and HDZ1990 not having a candidate this time).

HDZ had a standard result, with some losses in the cantons due to a party split in Canton 10/Livno. Else, everything remains the same, but Croatia is starting to get fed up with being outvoted all the time: In the Croatian parliament, a petition to declare Komšić a persona non grata, is expected to be debated soon.

So far, Trivić’s claims to the RS Presidency seem rather baseless and almost trumpesque. The opposition-to-SNSD speaks of fraud in numerous communities, especially Doboj and some towns where Trivić is supposed to have had zero votes.

https://twitter.com/BiH_Elects/status/1577375979177132073

The latter was a mistake by the CEC in one precinct where votes got mixed up, that was corrected later, and Doboj used to be an SDS stronghold in the past, yes – But: In 2019, all of the local party machine defected to SNSD, leading to SDS massively losing in the 2020 local elections. Her bad result in that town didn’t come from nowhere, but it remains to be seen if some other municipalities have seen rather dubious outcome. So far, that’s not the case, and the number of invalid votes isn’t unusually high either.

There are still some votes left to be counted, but overall there’s much of the same as in past elections, with few actual changes.

More analyses might follow, once every vote is in.

[Frodo]

Bosnian Serbs protest alleging vote-rigging by Dodik

[Astatine]

Here we go again:

https://twitter.com/BiH_Elects/status/1579464297339826176

CEC just announced a full recount of the RS presidential election. Last numbers had Dodik ahead by around 29,000 votes (4.8 %p).

[DavidB.]

Unless they suddenly "find" thousands of uncounted Trivic votes, the margin seems too big to overcome. In most cases I'd actually say this favors the candidate who controls the state apparatus.

[Astatine]

SDA has taken the lead over SNSD in the National House of Representatives election, now being ahead by mere 1,322 votes (0.09 %).

https://twitter.com/BiH_Elects/status/1580181135380086785

[CumbrianLefty]

"Leading" party with 17% - ha ha.

[Astatine]

"Leading" party with 17% - ha ha.

It's not Bosnia that dutchifies, it's the Netherlands that bosnify.

[DavidB.]

Finally a preliminary seat count for parliament:

SDA 9 (nc)
SNSD 6 (nc)
HDZ 5 (nc)
SDP 5 (nc)
DF 3 (nc)
Narod i Pravda 3 (+3)
Nasha Stranka 2 (nc)
NES 2 (+2)
SDS 2 (-1)
PDP 2 (nc)
Nebojsa Vukanovic 1
DEMOS 1 (+1)
United Srpska 1 (+1)

Narod i Pravda and NES have usurped right-wing secularist Bosniak voters from parties that failed to clear the threshold, but otherwise not much change. I'm hearing from friends from the region that a coalition of SNSD, HDZ, and the Bosniak "troika" of SDP, NiP and Nasha Stranka now seems the most likely option, so without SDA (and NES).

[Ex-Assemblyman Steelers]

I think that wouldn't happen (unfortunately), especially on the federal level. SDA, HDZ, and SNSD are old "friends".

[Storr]

https://twitter.com/JasminMuj/status/1584953044684312576?s=20&t=KYTD7Ji-ZZ4I...

[DavidB.]

I'm hearing from friends from the region that a coalition of SNSD, HDZ, and the Bosniak "troika" of SDP, NiP and Nasha Stranka now seems the most likely option, so without SDA (and NES).

Negotiations were successful - this government of SNSD, HDZ and the Troika has been formed, with SDA sidelined and in opposition.

[Storr]

It must be incredibly frustrating for Bosnians to have the convoluted and immutable system of government which they have in place. For example, due to it, they have to deal with BS like this:

https://twitter.com/JasminMuj/status/1623059579667099650?s=20&t=UfTtkHhSeSSk...

https://twitter.com/JasminMuj/status/1623060677576507392?s=20&t=o_xP4EiTdf3R...

[DavidB.]

It must be incredibly frustrating for Bosnians to have the convoluted and immutable system of government which they have in place. For example, due to it, they have to deal with BS like this:

That depends on whether you ask a Bosnian Serb, a Bosnian Croat, or a Bosniak. Consociationalism is messy and makes BiH dysfunctional, on that they will all agree, but 2 out of 3 of the recognized nations would say unitarism is worse.

It's really quite simple. If Bosniaks don't want to put up with this mess anymore and finally run their own country by themselves, which I can very well understand, then they should allow Republika Srpska and Herceg Bosna to secede. But if they don't, they have to accept they're sharing their country and can't run the country as if they are the only ones living in it. They can't have their cake and eat it. Mujanovic, one of their most relentless propagandists, will continue trying, though.