The main political parties in Bosnia rushed to declare victory on Sunday night in Bosnia’s eighth post-war general election – although the Central Election Commission cautioned that it was far too early to confirm such claims.
Bosnia’s main parties were declaring victory soon after polls closed at 7pm Sunday in an election in which 3,352,933 voters were eligible to vote at 5,794 polling stations.
Data from the Central Election Commission, CIK, showed that the turnout at state level was 53.26 per cent, although these are incomplete data, as the data from some municipalities had yet to be delivered to the CIK.
“We [CIK] cannot confirm the results that parties have [released], and what we publish at midnight will be unofficial results as well,” warned the president of CIK, Branko Peric.
However, this did not stop the main parties from already declaring victory.
Dragan Covic, president of the Croatian Democratic Union in Bosnia, HDZ BiH, won more votes than any other Croat candidates for the Croat seat on the state presidency, Predrag Kozul, from the HDZ in Bosnia, said, based on the first results.
However, others claimed that his rival Zeljko Komsic, was leading in the race against Covic.
Milorad Dodik, head of Alliance of Independent Social Democrats, and its candidate for the Serbian seat on the Bosnian presidency, was also reportedly leading against his opponent, Mladen Ivanic, candidate for the Alliance for Victory.
However, the Alliance said that according to its data Ivanic was leading against Dodik, by some 5 per cent.
Sefik Dzaferovic, candidate of the main Bosniak Party of Democratic Action, SDA, will be the next Bosniak member of the state presidency, according to the SDA’s first results.
Bosnians are electing a new state parliament, assemblies in the two entities, ten cantonal assemblies within one of the entities and the three-member state presidency.
A total of 518 positions are up for election. Three are seats on the state presidency, 42 are for the state parliament, 98 are for the assembly of the Federation entity, 83 are for the assembly of the Republika Srpska and three are for the president and vice-presidents of Republika Srpska.
For more read the full of article at The Balkaninsight
