Bosnia polls close as international watchdog changes election rules

Polls in Bosnia and Herzegovina’s general election have ended, with voters choosing their new leader from a mix of long-standing sectarian candidates and challengers who have pledged to root out government corruption.

Shortly after the count began, Bosnia’s international monitor, Christian Schmidt, announced in a YouTube video that he was revising the country’s electoral laws “to ensure the functional and timely implementation of election results.”

In the video, he assured citizens that the changes “will in no way affect” Sunday’s vote on the various levels of government in one of the most complex institutional setups in the world.

Bosnia’s power-sharing system was agreed in a US-sponsored peace deal that ended the brutal 1992-95 war between its three main ethnic groups – Muslim Bosniaks, Orthodox Serbs and Catholic Croats – The country is divided into two highly independent entities.

The entities — one run by Serbs and the other shared by Bosniacs and Croats — have broad autonomy but are linked by common state institutions. All actions across the country require consensus from all three ethnic groups.

The agreement also gives the senior international representative, a position currently held by Schmidt, a wide range of powers, including the ability to enforce laws and fire officials and civil servants who have disrupted the country’s fragile postwar racial balance.

Sunday’s elections include contests for three members of the Bosnian co-presidency; parliamentary representatives at the state, entity and regional levels; and the country’s Serb president.

The traditional ruling class is challenged by political parties in elections that share campaign promises to eliminate sponsorship networks and sanction government corruption despite ideological differences and sometimes conflicting agendas.

Analysts predict that long-entrenched nationalists, who have disappointed their constituents, are likely to continue to dominate post-election despite their disappointment, largely because the postwar system of sectarian governance has allowed reform-minded of Bosnians are not motivated to vote.

However, nationalist contenders for the country’s tripartite presidency and the Serb presidency insist that preliminary results suggest they are winning votes.

Sunday’s election turnout was down more than 50 percent or two percentage points from the 2018 election.