Bosnian General Elections 2010 and the Post-Election Crisis 71 BOSNIAN GENERAL ELECTIONS OF 2010 AND THE POST- ELECTION CRISIS 2010 Bosna-Hersek Genel Seçimleri ve Sonrasında Yaşanan Kriz Karić MIRSAD* 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 1 continued to dominate among the Bosnian Serbs, while HDZ 2 and HDZ 1990 3 received the highest votes in the Croat majority areas. SDP, 4 as only self- declared multi-ethnic party, won the majority of votes among Bosniaks. SDA 5 secured almost the same number of seats while the Party for Bosnia and Herzegovina 6 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. Keywords: Bosnia and Herzegovina, elections, political campaign, electoral law, political crisis. *International University of Sarajevo, Senior Assist. Dr. 1 SNSD – Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (ethnic Serbian political party; center-right) 2 HDZ – Croatian Democratic Union (ethnic Croatian political party; center-right) 3 HDZ 1990 – Croatian Democratic Union 1990 (splinter group from main HDZ BiH party; ethnic Croats; centrists) 4 SDP – Social Democratic Party (multi-ethnic political party; center-left) 5 SDA – Party of Democratic Action (multi-ethnic, Bosniak-dominated; center-right) 6 Party for Bosnia and Herzegovina (multi-ethnic, Bosniak-dominated; centrist)