Abstract:

This paper examines the 2010 general elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) and the post-election crisis.  Currently, Bosnia's political system is the result of the Dayton Accord that stopped the Bosnian war in 1995. Bosnia is described as a country with a multi-party system that regularly holds free, fair, and competitive elections. The 2010 elections brought significant changes to the composition of legislative assemblies at the cantonal, entity, and state levels. SNSD continued to dominate among the Bosnian Serbs, while HDZ and HDZ 1990 received the highest votes in the Croat majority areas. SDP, as only self-declared multi-ethnic party, won the majority of votes among Bosniaks. SDA secured almost the same number of seats while the Party for Bosnia and Herzegovina suffered the biggest loss. The phenomenon of each constituent people voting for their respective ethnic parties continues to characterize Bosnia‟s elections. Election results showed that there must be a wide range of political parties creating a parliamentary majority due to a rather complicated way of decision-making and law-passing procedures in Bosnia‟s political system. It triggered several waves of political crises since the leaders of political parties were not able to agree on a Prime Minister and other ministerial posts. 

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