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In the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, one of the two entities of the Balkan country (the other being the Serb Republic), all citizens can vote for the candidates to the Presidency upon reaching the major age. However, only citizens who declare themselves as Bosniaks (also known as Bosnian Muslims) or as Croats are eligible. (In the Serb Republic, there is also an election for the third member of the Presidency.) The logic of such a system, however, is that the politician elected to the Presidency represents only his or her ethnic group and not all citizens. Representatives of the Jewish and Roma communities, as well as many other Bosnian citizens who do not belong to any of the three official ethnic groups, have protested against this system that in practice denies them the right to stand as candidates for the highest political office of their country.
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