Bosnia just handed its Serb bloc a landslide and Russia's ambassador was in the room
1 day ago · 5 October 2026Share
Milorad Dodik, President of Republika Srpska. File photo. Mauro Bottaro - European Commission · CC BY 4.0
Bosnia just handed a Russia-aligned Serb nationalist movement the biggest win of its political life.
So here's what happened. Bosnia held its general election a few hours ago. The country still runs on the power-sharing system from the 1995 Dayton peace deal, the one that ended the Bosnian war.
About 3.4 million people could vote. Only 42 per cent did. That's down around 8 points from 2022. Bosnia's Central Election Commission counted 1,432,269 votes.
Zeljka Cvijanovic won the Serb seat on the presidency. She got about 55.3 per cent. With nearly 90 per cent counted, she was 30 points ahead of her nearest rival.
Now here's the twist. Zeljka Cvijanovic runs with Milorad Dodik's party, the SNSD. And Milorad Dodik himself wasn't even on the ballot.
He's banned from holding public office for six years. He was convicted of defying Christian Schmidt, the international official who oversees the Dayton peace deal.
Banned or not, Dodik declared victory anyway. And he ran the whole campaign from the sidelines.
At his news conference, Dodik said his party will hold a vast majority in Republika Srpska's assembly.
Then he thanked two people. Donald Trump, the US president, for what Dodik called his 2024 election win. And Vladimir Putin, Russia's president, for backing him.
Dodik had flown to Moscow and met Putin just before the vote.
So think about that. A man banned from office for defying his country's own peace deal is crediting the American and Russian presidents for his win.
Two days before the vote, at his party's last rally in Banja Luka, Dodik said Bosnia is dead, that it's an impossible country, and that it doesn't make sense.
Russia's ambassador to Bosnia, Igor Khalabukov, was sitting at that same rally.
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A sunset view of Hrasno, Sarajevo. File photo. Milan Suvajac · CC BY-SA 4.0
And there's more. Savo Minic, the Prime Minister of Republika Srpska and another SNSD figure, was also on track to win the Republika Srpska entity presidency. That's the party locking down the Serb-run half of the country from two directions at once.
The other two presidency races were much closer, and split along ethnic lines, same as always.
Denis Becirovic, the sitting Bosniak member of the presidency, led his race by under three points over Bakir Izetbegovic. Darijana Filipovic led the Croat race, and she could unseat the sitting member, Zeljko Komsic. Both Filipovic and Becirovic declared victory before the count was even finished.
Here's why that split matters. Bosnia elects its presidency by ethnic quota. Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats each vote in their own race. And people mostly vote along ethnic lines, every time.
That system keeps blocking the reforms Brussels wants.
Bosnia got EU candidate status back in December 2022. But accession talks have stalled since then over judicial and anti-corruption reforms the EU is demanding. Now there's a Serb bloc that just won big, and it's openly aligned with Moscow. So those reforms just got harder to imagine passing.
Not everyone sees it through Dodik and Russia, though. Adi Selman, an activist with the group Karton Revolucija, told AFP the major parties keep going on about war, tensions, divisions and the past, instead of talking about living standards.
And one analyst, Dragan Bursac, said that even kept off the ballot for the first time in almost 30 years, Dodik is still in command. He said the ban on Dodik just isn't working.
One more detail. This was the first Bosnian election using electronic ballot scanners and biometric voter checks. That caused delays at some polling stations.
Final, certified results are due from the Central Election Commission by 20 November at the latest. It's not yet known whether this changes the EU's approach to Bosnia's membership bid, or what Brussels does next.
Dodik had his own summary of the night. He said his side won't change its politics and will keep going for their people.
A man banned from office for defying the peace deal has just won control of the assembly that runs half the country. Moscow's ambassador was at his rally. Washington's and Moscow's leaders were both in his victory speech.
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