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A woman walks past election posters in Sarajevo.

REUTERS/Dado Ruvic

Is Bosnia’s stability at stake?

Before Ukraine, the worst conflict in Europe since 1945 was the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina sparked by the collapse of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. The region’s multiethnic population of Croats, Bosnian Muslims (aka Bosniaks), and Serbs wrestled for control from 1992-1995, when the West finally helped end the fighting, culminating in the Dayton Accords. The deal created a power-sharing peace agreement between the three ethnicities.

Nearly 30 years later, political tensions are rising again – with Bosnian Serbs challenging state institutions and threatening to secede as Croats are vying to gain more political representation – and Bosnia’s economy is struggling, raising the specter of another crisis. Against this backdrop, Bosnia and Herzegovina's voters head to the polls for presidential and parliamentary elections on Sunday.

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