Sinisa Karan, the Minister of Scientific and Technological Development in Republika Srpska, has won the snap presidential election. He is an ally of pro-Russian leader Milorad Dodik.
This was stated by the head of the Central Election Commission Jovan Kalab, DW reports.
According to preliminary and not yet official results, Sinisa Karan won 50.89% of the vote. Meanwhile, his main competitor, oppositionist Branko Blanusa, won 47.8%.
The same day, the leader of the independent Social Democratic Party of Serbia (SNSD),= Milorad Dodik, who has long sought the separation of Republika Srpska from the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina, congratulated his ally on his victory. Karan promised to continue Dodikʼs policies "with even greater force".
About 1.2 million people voted in these elections in Republika Srpska. The winner of the election will only serve one year, as Bosnia and Herzegovina will hold nationwide parliamentary elections, including the election of the president of the Serbian region, in October 2026.
Dodikʼs politics
Pro-Russian Dodik initiated a law that would ban the state judiciary and police from operating in the Serb region, but Bosniaʼs Constitutional Court temporarily suspended its implementation. This law, modeled on the Russian one, provides for tight control over the activities of the public sector in RS. Dodik said that the law will be implemented anyway, despite the courtʼs decision.
In March, the Prosecutorʼs Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina issued an arrest warrant for Dodik and other politicians. They were charged with “violating the constitutional order”.
The warrant was issued on the day the National Assembly of Republika Srpska was to discuss a draft constitution, according to which the authorities of the autonomy wanted to define it as a state of the Serbian people, grant it the right to self-determination and create its own army. This contradicts the constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Contrary to a domestic arrest warrant, Dodik crossed the border into neighboring Serbia in late March and traveled to Israel for a conference on anti-Semitism.
On March 27, a court in Bosnia and Herzegovina issued an international arrest warrant for Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik, who is accused of violating the constitutional order.
In February, a court in Bosnia and Herzegovina convicted Milorad Dodik of disobeying a decision by international peacekeeper Christian Schmidt, who oversees the Balkan country. Dodik was found guilty of ignoring Schmidt’s decision and signing laws that Schmidt had previously overturned.
The laws were intended to block the implementation of decisions by the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the High Representative himself in the territory of Republika Srpska, although both bodies had previously overturned similar parliamentary initiatives. Dodik was then sentenced to a year in prison and a six-year ban on political activity.
The US and UK have imposed sanctions on him for obstructing the implementation of the Dayton Peace Accords that ended the Bosnian war in the 1990s. Several other European countries have imposed sanctions on Dodik because they consider his separatist policies a threat to peace and stability in Bosnia.
In October, the US lifted sanctions against Milorad Dodik, his family, and former officials.
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