In the Serbian Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, a confidant of ousted Serbian leader Milorad Dodik appears to have won early presidential elections. As announced by the Bosnian election authorities, Siniša Karan had a narrow lead over the opposition candidate after almost all the votes were counted.
“Based on preliminary, unofficial and incomplete results, Siniša Karan received 50.89 percent of the vote,” the KPU chairman said at a press conference.
The election became necessary after Dodik was removed from the previous position of President of Republika Srpska (RS). She is the head of the ruling Serbian nationalist party, SNSD, and aims to secede from the Serbian republic. In August, a court banned him from running for all political office for six years and sentenced him to one year in prison for separatist activities. Election authorities then removed him from the presidency and held new elections.
Dodik is also under investigation on various charges – including anti-constitutional activities. He also refused to recognize the Srebrenica massacre, which killed more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys in 1995, as genocide. It is also punishable under Bosnian law.
Since 1995, Bosnia-Herzegovina has been divided into the Republika Srpska of the Serb ethnic group on the one hand, the Federation of Croat Muslims in Bosnia and Herzegovina on the other, and the special administrative region of Brčko. The country’s two semi-autonomous regions have their own governments and parliaments and are linked by a weak central government.
