Bosnia votes recounted, pro-Putin politician Dodik remains the big winner

In elections 26 days ago, Dodik’s right-hand man, Zeljka Cvijanovic, was also elected one of three presidents of Bosnia and Herzegovina – a rotating office. The result offers little hope for a stable, west-facing Bosnia, precisely in the very month the European Commission expelled the country. nominated as a candidate country.

The opposition and its supporters in the Serbian republic, Republika Srpska, did not initially accept the result. Trekking for days tens of thousands of protesters in the streets of Banja Luka, the capital of Republika Srpska. Opposition parties accused Dodik’s party of fraud and other electoral irregularities. The main opponent, Jelena Trivic, for example, won no votes in her native village, according to the official count.

New elections, as demanded by some opposition parties, did not take place, but a recount did. On Thursday evening, the Bosnian electoral commission acknowledged that some irregularities had been discovered, but that they had not materially affected the result. The result holds. Trivic said the Facebook not to accept the decision of the electoral commission and announced “to continue its fight”.

secretion

Bosnia and Herzegovina has one of the most complex democratic systems in the world. Basically, this means that each ethnic group in the country, Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs, elects its own president. The country’s presidency therefore has three members, who are rotating heads of state. Furthermore, the people of Republika Srpska also elect their own president, who lives in the presidential palace in Banja Luka.

Before the elections, Dodik changed positions with his party colleague Zeljka Cvijanovic. He was one of three presidents of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but ran for president in Republika Srpska. Cvijanovic, president of Republika Srpska before the elections, was in turn one of three Bosnian presidents, on behalf of ethnic Serbs.

The election of Dodik and his right-hand man is good news for Russian President Vladimir Putin. In recent years, Russia has tried to increase its influence in the Western Balkans, but this largely came to an end after the invasion of Ukraine. Apart from Bosnia and neighboring Serbia, all Balkan countries participate in EU sanctions against Russia.

A distant EU membership

With Dodik in the saddle, Bosnia will remain a discord: the nationalist is a follower of Putin and previously supported the sham referendum with which Russia legitimized the illegal annexation of four Ukrainian provinces. Dodik repeatedly mentioned that he wanted to force a separation from Republika Srpska.

It pushes Bosnia further away from EU membership, despite the candidate status that the European Commission wants to give to the country. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is currently visiting the Western Balkans in preparation for a Balkan EU summit in the Albanian capital, Tirana, in early December. It is still unclear whether she will also travel to Bosnia.

The Bosnians, on the other hand, chose a pro-European president rather than the incumbent nationalist in the elections with Denis Becirovic. The Croats re-elected Zeljko Komsic, also pro-European and reformist.