Cvijanović, Filipović and Bećirović lead Bosnia's presidency races as turnout falls to 42 percent

Željka Cvijanović, Darijana Filipović and Denis Bećirović led the three races for Bosnia's joint presidency on Sunday night, with the count still open and turnout down. The central election commission said 1,432,269 votes had been cast, a turnout of 42 percent, about eight points below the 2022 election. Milorad Dodik, banned from holding public office, declared victory for his party anyway.

With nearly 90 percent counted, Cvijanović of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats had more than 55 percent for the Serb seat, about 30 points ahead of her nearest rival, the Guardian reported. HRT, citing preliminary figures, said Filipović of the Croatian Democratic Union had 109,125 votes to Slaven Kovačević's 71,560 for the Croat seat. Bećirović of the Social Democratic Party led Bakir Izetbegović by fewer than three points for the Bosniak seat, with more than 94 percent counted. Filipović and Bećirović both declared victory before the last ballots were in.

The presidency is three people, one from each constituent people, and it is the office the Dayton settlement uses to keep the 1992-95 war from becoming a single winner. A result that puts SNSD back in the Serb chair, HDZ BiH in the Croat chair, and the incumbent Social Democrat in the Bosniak chair is a vote for the existing division, at a lower turnout. The commission said the day passed without major trouble, and that new voter-identification technology had worked.

Dodik is the fact that does not appear on the ballot and still organises the result. He was the president of Republika Srpska until a court ban removed him from office. His ally Cvijanović, who has already sat on the state presidency, was the name on the paper. A party that can win the Serb seat by 30 points without its leader on the ballot has a substitute. It does not have a new policy. Dodik's campaign language stayed on separation, on Russia, and on resistance to the international high representative. Cvijanović's margin says that language still has a majority inside the entity.

The entity presidency of Republika Srpska was on the same ballot. HRT reported Savo Minić of SNSD leading with more than 270,000 votes, against Branko Blanuša of SDS on more than 217,000. If that lead holds, Dodik's party keeps both the entity executive and the state Serb seat. The ban on one man has not broken the machine. It has moved the names.

Turnout is the other number. By 6 p.m. about 36 percent of 3.4 million registered voters had voted, a little over 1.25 million, the commission said. The final 42 percent is still well short of 2022. Young people leaving Bosnia was the theme opposition candidates used and did not reverse. A presidency elected by 42 percent of a shrinking register has a weaker claim to speak for the people who have already gone to Austria and Germany.

Dragan Čović, the HDZ BiH leader, declared Filipović the Croat member and thanked Bosniaks for not deciding the Croat race. That sentence is the old complaint in reverse. HDZ has long argued that Bosniak votes in mixed cantons pick the Croat member. A 109,125 to 71,560 margin lets Čović say, this time, that they did not. Bećirović's race is the close one. A lead of under three points over Izetbegović, with votes still out, is the result most likely to move in the final list.

The commission has not certified any of the three. Declarations on Sunday night are claims. The useful comparison, once the list is final, is not only who won. It is whether SNSD's 30-point Serb margin and the 42 percent turnout can sit in the same sentence without one cancelling the other. A large win in a smaller vote is still a win. It is a smaller mandate than the winner will say it is.