General elections are being held today in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Citizens are electing three members of the Presidency, deputies to the state parliament, representatives to the parliaments of Republika Srpska and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the president of Republika Srpska and deputies to the cantonal parliaments in the Federation.
Polling stations open at 7 a.m. local time and will close at 7 p.m., which means from 8 to 8 p.m. Bulgarian time. The election silence ends with the end of election day.
New voting technology
The vote is being conducted with biometric voter identification and optical ballot scanners. These are the first elections in the country to use both technologies simultaneously. The aim is to increase the security of the electoral process, and the Central Election Commission and political parties have conducted an awareness campaign on how to vote.
However, the forecast is not the same for all institutions. The Personal Data Protection Agency, quoted by the public television of Republika Srpska RTRS, expects the voting to last from three to five minutes, and in some cases even longer.
30,000 observers are monitoring the vote
A total of 30,000 observers have been accredited for the elections, including 756 foreign ones. They will monitor the conduct of the vote and the counting of the ballots.
A Complex Political System
Bosnia and Herzegovina is divided into two semi-autonomous components following the 1992-1995 interethnic war and the Dayton Peace Agreement - Republika Srpska and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Republika Srpska is populated mainly by Bosnian Serbs, while the Federation is home to Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats.
The two parts have their own governments, parliaments and police, but are linked by common state-level institutions, including the judiciary, army, security services and tax administration. The Dayton Agreement also regulates the powers of the high representative of the international community, who can impose laws and dismiss officials.
Sources: BTA