Bosnia votes in one of world’s most complicated general elections

Voters cast their ballots for a dizzying number of officials across multiple tiers of government.Polls have opened in Bosnia and Herzegovina for a general election to choose new leaders at the national and regional levels, in a vote that could affect the country’s European Union membership bid.On Saturday, about 3.4 million voters are choosing the three members of the country’s multiethnic presidency, lawmakers for the national Parliament and heads of institutions for the country’s two entities: the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) and Republika Srpska, which is dominated by ethnic Serbs.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemslist 1 of 3Bosnia’s elections explainedlist 2 of 3Bosnian Serb leader says Bosnia is ‘dead’ ahead of electionlist 3 of 3Bosnia’s high-stakes election: Here’s what to knowend of listBosnia’s complex web of governing institutions was created by a United States-brokered peace agreement in 1995 in an effort to manage the ethnic divisions between Muslim Bosniaks, Orthodox Serbs and Catholic Croats that gave rise to the 1992-95 war.A voter identifies himself using an optical scanner at a polling station during the general election in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, October 4 2026 [Hazim Aljovic/EPA]The major parties’ repeated focus on war-era rhetoric and division was frustrating for some voters, activist Adi Selman of the Karton Revolucija protest group told the AFP news agency.“I don’t think these new elections in Bosnia will change anything,” the 34-year-old said in the northern Bosnian town of Tuzla, ahead of the vote.“The choice is limited to political parties that have already been around for 30 years and basically pick up votes by harping on about war, tensions, divisions and the past.”“Bosnia and Herzegovina is dead; it is an impossible country,” Republika Srpska’s former president, Milorad Dodik, told the final rally of his right-wing Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) in the entity’s capital Banja Luka late on Friday.