Bosnia incumbents lead Bosniak, Serb races, HDZ ahead for Croat seat

The Central Election Commission released preliminary results approximately one hour after most polling stations closed Sunday, showing incumbent members Denis Becirovic and Zeljka Cvijanovic leading the contests for the Bosniak and Serb seats on Bosnia and Herzegovina's three-member Presidency, according to Anadolu Agency.

Becirovic, seeking re-election as the Bosniak member, received 164,369 votes, placing him ahead of former Presidency chairman Bakir Izetbegovic of the Party of Democratic Action, who secured 148,036 votes. In the race for the Serb seat, Cvijanovic — the incumbent and Alliance of Independent Social Democrats candidate — garnered 213,812 votes, well ahead of Serb Democratic Party rival Marinko Bozovic, who received 102,877 votes.

The contest for the Croat member seat indicated a potential shift in power, with HDZ Bosnia and Herzegovina candidate Darijana Filipovic leading with 92,854 votes against incumbent Zeljko Komsic, who was not among the frontrunners in preliminary tallies. Slaven Kovacevic of the Democratic Front followed with 55,475 votes, while independent candidate Zdenko Lucic received 44,345 votes.

Entity and parliamentary results

In the race for president of the Republika Srpska entity, Alliance of Independent Social Democrats candidate Savo Minic secured 202,245 votes to lead the field, followed by Branko Blanusa of the Serb Democratic Party with 160,936 votes. Ramiz Salkic of the Party of Democratic Action received 6,740 votes, while Camil Durakovic had 4,413, according to the preliminary data.

For the state-level House of Representatives, the Party of Democratic Action led in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina entity with 186,675 votes, trailed by the Social Democratic Party with 91,886 votes and the HDZ BiH-HS coalition with 83,834. In Republika Srpska, the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats topped the tally with 151,032 votes, ahead of Drasko Stanivukovic's Safe Srpska Movement with 53,448 votes and the Serb Democratic Party with 50,328.

Turnout and electronic voting

Voter turnout reached 41.48 percent, with 1,414,007 of the 3,408,517 registered voters casting ballots — a decline of nearly 10 percentage points from the 51.45 percent recorded in the 2022 general elections, according to official data. The decrease represents approximately 319,000 fewer voters compared to four years ago, when 1,733,206 people participated.

Sunday's elections marked the first nationwide implementation of biometric voter identification, electronic ballot scanners and video surveillance at polling stations. Commission President Jovan Kalaba confirmed the new technology functioned as intended, stating: "For all municipal and city election commissions, we received confirmation that there was no switch to traditional voting. This means the scanners did the job for which they were intended," he said. The electronic system enabled the commission to publish initial tallies within an hour of polls closing, significantly accelerating the results process compared to previous cycles.