Stay tuned for all the latest developments, election results and reactions as Bosnia and Herzegovina goes to the polls in general and presidential elections.
21:55 Igor Crnadak of the Party of Democratic Progress, PDP, said that according to their data their president Mladen Ivanic, who is running for the Serb member of the Presidency has won 116,000 votes and has a lead of 12,000 votes ahead of his opponent Zeljka Cvijanovic, who has so far won 104,000 votes.
21:40 Nebojsa Radmanovic of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats, SNSD, said that the party was satisfied with the turnout.
He added that SNSD had 37 per cent of votes counted. According to that, SNSD’s Zeljka Radmanovic was leading with 52 per cent against Mladen Ivanic with 47 per cent in the race for the Serb seat of the Bosnian tripartite Presidency. He also said that Milorad Dodik is leading in the race for president of Republika Srpska before his opponent Ognjen Tadic.
21:20 The preliminary results of the elections are expected around midnight.
21:05 Central Elections Commission says the voter turnout on state level is 50,1 per cent of the electorate. In the Federation the voter turnout was 48,3 per cent while in Republika Srpska 53,2 per cent of the voters cast their ballots. The Commission still does not have the data for Tuzla, Livno and Zvornik so the overall turnout might increase once that information is in, said Stjepan Mikic, head of Central Electoral Commission. The last general elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina were held in 2010. Voter turnout in 2010 was 56 per cent.
21:00 Valentin Inzko, High Representative to Bosnia and Herzegovina, tasked with overseeing the implementation of the Dayton Peace Accords, which stopped the 1992-95 war in the country, told Al Jazeera Balkans that the results of the elections will be stained because the rights ruling is still not respected.
He referred to the 2009 Sejdic and Finci ruling by the European Court of Human Rights which ordered Bosnia to change its constitution and allow minorities to run for the top governing posts currently reserved for candidates of the three largest ethnic groups, Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats.
Some EU officials earlier have threatened that the results of the 2014 elections could not be recognized by the international organizations due to the ruling not being implemented but in the past months such a possibility was no longer mentioned.
20:45 Numerous voters have complained on social networks that the election observers from various parties at different polling stations asked the election commissions for the names of the voters as they registered to vote, which is illegal.
20:40 Election observers of the Alliance for a Better Future, SBB, the party led by the candidate for the Bosniak member of the Presidency, Fahrudin Radoncic, said they sent more than 50 complaints for irregularities to the Central Electoral Commission.
They said that, for example, in Jablanica there were cases that people with invalid documents were allowed to vote or that in some other polling stations allegedly around 30 unidentified persons voted five to six times with ballots already filled, voting for SDA candidates.
20:20 Election observers of the Party of Democratic Action, SDA, in few polling units in Stari Grad Sarajevo recorded irregularities. They said a number of ballots were missing which increases suspicions of electoral fraud. They said that voters would get a filled ballot which they carry in the polling station, cast them and leave the polling station with the empty ballots.
20:10 Social Democratic Party, SDP said that despite the assessment from the Central Elections Commission that there were only minor irregularities, the party has recorded numerous violations of the election process “which casts a shadow of doubt in those polling station and increases suspicions of electoral fraud.”
Lidija Korac of the SDP said there were missing ballots and that the situation at certain polling places could not be amended but would require a new vote. She also said at some polling stations people were casting up to 50 ballots. She also said there were cases of individuals threatening voters with guns.
“Therefore we have reason to question the credibility of the electoral process at least in some parts and therefore also question the results,” Korac said. “We expect the institution to react about these irregularities but not to react in a way they will say that those polling stations would not affect the overall result, but to annul the vote and organise new elections at those polling stations.”
19:55 Dario Jovanovic of the Coalition Pod Lupom which is monitoring the election speaks to Al Jazeera Balkans about the role of social networks in the elections and the irregularities they have recorded during the elections.
19:40 Igor Radojicic of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats, SNSD, currently the ruling party in Repubika Srpska at a press conference and said that the party is closely following the process of the voting and counting the ballots and that they spotted misleading information on social networks already.
“No one needs too early or false representation of results,” he said, “The final and valid results are only the ones from the Central Electoral Commission.” He said he expected a SNSD victory.
19:30 Bosnia and Herzegovina is divided into two entities – the Bosniak-Croat Federation and the Serb-dominated Republika Srpska – and eight electoral units, three in the Republika Srpska and five in the Federation.
The three Presidency members are elected from the three constituent peoples – one Bosniak, one Serb and one Croat. For the Bosnian State Parliament, citizen will choose 42 representatives, 28 members are elected in the Federation, 14 in the Republika Srpska.
The entity parliament members are also being chosen on the general elections. Voters in the Federation elected 98 members while the ones in Republika Srpska chose 83 representatives to the entity National Assembly. Within the Federation, there are ten cantons each have 21 to 35 seats in their assemblies.
In 2010 in the Federation, the Social-democratic party, SDP won 26 per cent while the Party of Democratic Action, SDA, 19.5 per cent of the vote. The largest Bosnian Croat political force was the Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ, won 11 per cent. A six-party government between SDP, SDA, the Croatian HDZ, the Croatian Democratic Union 1990, the Serbian Democratic Party, SDS, and the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats, SNSD, was formed 15 months after the election. In Republika Srpska entity, SNSD won the elections with 43.3 per cent, nearly twice as much as the SDS.
(Source: the BalkanInsight)