Chairmen of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina

Yet some experts, officials and diplomats say future elections are almost irrelevant while local leaders continue to block the system, playing their lose-lose games.

To make matters worse, Bosnia's unfolding political drama is increasingly intertwined with other regional and international disputes, especially with the tensions between Serbia and Kosovo.

They warn that years of political divisions, zero-sum games, distrust and poor communication between local leaders, as well as growing tensions among key regional and global actors, have left Bosnia a ticking time-bomb that could go off at any moment, leading to the collapse of the remaining joint institutions or even the breakup of the country.

Turbulence Ahead

The deep summer season is not yet over, but with Presidential elections due in November in Romania, political life is heating up. With the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats (ALDE) having quit the Social Democratic Party (PSD) led government, the PSD now finds itself without an absolute majority in Parliament.

An extraordinary session of the Bosnian presidency intended to finally form a new state-level government, known as the Council of Ministers, was cancelled on Tuesday as the country's political crisis deepened further.

What followed was a maelstrom of confusion: Dodik and the SNSD explicitly claimed to have buried the matter, while the Bosniak nationalist Party of Democratic Action, SDA, vacillated.

Bosniak Sefik Dzaferovic (R) and Croat Zeljko Komsic (2-R), members of the presidency. EPA-EFE/FEHIM DEMIR

The presidency - comprising a Bosniak, Serb and Croat - was unable to agree the agenda for Tuesday's session and so postponed the meeting and a decision on appointing a prime minister, or the chair of the Council of Ministers.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is visiting the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo on July Tuesday and Wednesday to attend the regional Summit of the South-East European Co-operation Process, SEECP.

However, according to agreed protocols, he will also use this visit to meet Bosnian and regional leaders.

At the same time, development assistance is a tool of soft power and public diplomacy. This component, or side effect, of development assistance must be underlined when it comes to looking at TIKA's role as the most visible Turkish government actor in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The Croatian parliament on Wednesday will discuss a declaration on the rights of Croats living in Bosnia and Herzegovina which calls for changes to Bosnia's constitution and electoral law which it claims will ensure equality for Croats in the country.

Three former High Represenatives to Bosnia, Carl Bildt, Paddy Ashdown, and Christian Schwarz-Schilling, expressed their concern in an open letter to EU Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini on Thursday over Croatian attempts to dispute the legitimacy of the election of Zeljko Komsic as the Bosnian Croat member of the state's tripartite presidency.