Dodik claims party victory in Bosnia and Herzegovina elections — The Guardian
Bosnian Serb politician Milorad Dodik has declared his party’s victory in the elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Dodik himself was not a candidate, as he was barred from holding public office after last year’s conviction for failing to comply with the decisions of the international representative overseeing the implementation of the 1995 peace agreement.
As The Guardian reports, after nearly 90% of ballots had been counted, Dodik’s ally Željka Cvijanović of the right-wing Alliance of Independent Social Democrats was receiving more than 55% of the vote in the race for one of three seats in the country’s collective presidency. She was ahead of her nearest rival by about 30 percentage points.
Claim of a majority in Republika Srpska
At a press conference on Sunday evening, Dodik also said that his party would have an “enormous majority” in the parliament of Republika Srpska, an entity within Bosnia and Herzegovina with a predominantly Serb population. According to him, the result was aided by the “great victory” of US President Donald Trump in 2024 and the support of Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose country is an aggressor state.
Dodik said that his political force would not change its course. During the final rally in Banja Luka, he told supporters that Bosnia and Herzegovina was “dead” and called it an “impossible country”. Russian Ambassador Igor Kalabukhov attended the event.
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Preliminary results of other races
About 3.4 million voters were eligible to take part in the elections. They elected three members of the collective presidency, deputies to the state parliament and leaders of the institutions of the country’s two entities: the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, where Bosniak Muslims form the majority, and Republika Srpska.
After more than 94% of votes had been counted, Darijana Filipović of the nationalist Croatian Democratic Union of Bosnia and Herzegovina was comfortably leading in the race for the Croat representative’s seat in the presidency. The incumbent Bosniak member of the presidency, Denis Bećirović of the Social Democratic Party, was leading Bakir Izetbegović by less than three percentage points. Both politicians declared victory before the count was completed.
The Central Election Commission reported 1,432,269 votes cast. Turnout was 42%, approximately 8% lower than in the 2022 elections.
