[21] According to Transparency International in Bosnia and Herzegovina (TI BIH), political parties spent almost one million BAM on video production and advertising in TV and print media in the first two weeks of campaign.

[23] In Velika Kladuša, outgoing mayor and convicted war criminal Fikret Abdić, under arrest since June for abuse of office,[24] was released to allow him to carry out electoral campaign.

On 7 October, the CIK banned from elections the United Srpska and fined it BAM 10,000 for diffusion of a video on social media deemed as spreading ethnic hatred.

[27][28] On 15 October, the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina annulled such decision, as it deemed that the legal provisions referred to by the CIK (Election Law) did not apply to the period ahead the formal start of the electoral campaign.

To facilitate the identification of such cases, on 8 October the CIK published on its website the liste of registered mail-in voters, including names and addresses, allowing all citizens to identify and report suspected irregularities.

On 14 October the BiH Agency for the Protection of Personal Data requested the removal of the list of registered mail-in voters from the CIK website, citing privacy concerns.

Governing parties in each communities (Bosniak SDA and Bosnian Serb SNSD) had a lacklustre showing, and opposition candidates won in Sarajevo as well as, unexpectedly, in Banja Luka and Bijeljina.

[37] In parallel, the alliance of the four opposition parties, colloquially called the Four, also initiated the reshuffle process of the government of the Sarajevo Canton, which they controlled with good results for the first time in 2019, but which returned in March 2020 to the hands of the SDA.

Also in Tuzla, the Social Democrat Jasmin Imamović – the longest-serving mayor in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in power since 2001 – maintained control of the cantonal capital, resulting in the lead in all polling stations in town.

[38] In the Republika Srpska entity, 27-year-old opposition candidate Draško Stanivuković (PDP) won the majority of votes for the post of City mayor of Banja Luka over the outgoing Igor Radojičić (SNSD), a loyalist of Dodik.

Finally, in Bijeljina the outgoing mayor Mićo Mićić, in power since 2004, had aligned himself with Dodik, being expelled from the SDS party; he unexpectedly lost his seat to opposition candidate Ljubiša Petrović (SDS/PDP).