“Now they have two Dodiks”Serb separatist candidates win elections in Bosnian republic
Due to former President Dodik’s separatist activities, new elections had to be held in the Serbian part of Bosnia-Herzegovina. It is unlikely there will be a policy change: the current incumbent’s confidant will win.
At the start of presidential elections in the Serb Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, ousted Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik won after nearly all ballots were counted. Former Interior Minister and confidant Dodik Sinisa Karan of the Independent Social Democratic Party (SNSD) rose from nearly 93 percent of the vote to 50.9 percent, the election commission said. Its main competitor Branko Blancusa received 47.8 percent.
Karan is clearly considered the favorite among the six candidates. Blanusa, previously unknown, is running for the largest opposition party. Some 1.2 million eligible voters in Serbia’s Republika Srpska were able to cast their ballots, but few did: turnout was less than 36 percent. In the last election, the figure reached 53 percent.
Dodik remains the mastermind
“Today’s election was won by our candidate Sinisa Karan. There is no doubt about it,” SNSD party leader Dodik told his supporters in Banja Luka. “They wanted to remove Dodik through a very unfair political process (…) and now they have two Dodiks,” he said. Nationalist Dodik was removed from his post as President of Republika Srpska by the Central Election Commission in early August after nearly two decades in power. Before his dismissal, he was convicted of enacting two laws prohibiting the implementation of decisions of the UN High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Even though Dodik himself was not allowed to run for election, he was still considered the real mastermind. The 66-year-old man aims for the Serbian republic to separate from Bosnia and Herzegovina. However, the election winner, Karan, will only be in office for less than a year, as nationwide parliamentary and presidential elections will be held in Bosnia in October 2026.
Since the Dayton Agreement, Bosnia and Herzegovina has been divided into Republika Srpska, which is mainly inhabited by Bosnian Serbs, and the Muslim Croat Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The country’s two semi-autonomous regions are linked by a weak central government. Nearly a third of the 3.5 million population lives in Republika Srpska, which covers almost half of the Balkan country.
