Talha Oztürk
04 October 2026•Update: 04 October 2026
Voting began Sunday in Bosnia and Herzegovina’s general elections, with more than 3.4 million registered voters eligible to choose new leadership and lawmakers at several levels of government.
Polling stations opened at 7 am local time (0500GMT) and are scheduled to close at 7 pm, according to the Central Election Commission (CIK).
A total of 3,414,364 voters are eligible to vote in the elections, which are held every four years.
Voters will elect the Bosniak, Croat and Serb members of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s three-member presidency, as well as members of the state-level Parliamentary Assembly.
They will also elect lawmakers to the House of Representatives of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, one of the country’s two entities. The National Assembly of Republika Srpska is the other.
Voters will also choose the president and vice presidents of Republika Srpska and members of the 10 cantonal assemblies in the Federation entity.
A total of 518 officials will be elected.
Bosnia and Herzegovina has a complex political system established under the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement, which ended the 1992 – 1995 war.
The country consists of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republika Srpska, as well as the self-governing Brcko District.
10 candidates seek seats on tripartite presidency
Ten candidates are competing for the three seats on the presidency.
Voters in the Federation can vote for either a Bosniak or Croat member of the Presidency, while voters in the Republika Srpska entity elect the Serb member.
Incumbent Denis Becirovic, Bakir Izetbegovic, Semir Efendic and Fahrudin Radoncic are running for the Bosniak seat.
Darijana Filipovic, Zdenko Lucic and Slaven Kovacevic are competing for the Croat seat, while incumbent Zeljka Cvijanovic, Marinko Bozovic and Nebojsa Vukanovic are running for the Serb seat.
Twelve candidates are also competing for the presidency of Republika Srpska.
The CIK approved 75 political parties, 29 coalitions and four independent candidates.
More than 7,000 candidacies have been registered at all levels of government.
New election technology used for first time
The election also marks the first nationwide use of new voting technology designed to improve the identification of voters, counting of ballots and transmission of results.
Biometric voter verification, ballot scanners and video surveillance systems are being used at around 4,500 polling locations.
After their identities are checked, voters will undergo fingerprint verification. Voting will continue to be conducted using paper ballots, which will be scanned before being placed in ballot boxes.
Data from the scanned ballots will be transmitted directly to the CIK, allowing preliminary and incomplete results to be announced at around 8 pm, earlier than in previous elections.
The ballots will also be counted manually.
The election commission has said additional checks will be conducted if there is a significant discrepancy between scanned and manually counted ballots. If the discrepancy remains, the manual count will be accepted as the official result.
Voting abroad
Bosnians living abroad are also taking part in the elections.
A total of 48,078 voters registered to cast ballots by mail, marking one of the lowest levels of diaspora registration in recent election cycles.
Voting is also taking place at 20 Bosnian diplomatic and consular missions in 13 countries, including Germany, Austria, Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia, Switzerland, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, Norway, the US, Qatar and Jordan.
The number of registered voters is slightly higher than in the 2022 general elections, when 3.37 million people were on the electoral roll.
In the 2022 elections, Becirovic was elected as the Bosniak member of the presidency, Zeljko Komsic as the Croat member and Cvijanovic as the Serb member.
Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence in 1992, and its first elections following the war were held in September 1996.