Sinisa Karan wins early presidential race in Bosnia’s Serb entity

Sinisa Karan, a close ally of separatist leader Milorad Dodik, has secured victory in the early presidential vote in Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Serb entity (Republika Srpska).

Jovan Kalaba, the election commission’s president, announced at a news conference that preliminary, unofficial and incomplete results show Karan securing 50.89% of the vote, Caliber.Az reports, citing Reuters.

Kalaba noted that opposition contender Branko Blanusa of the Serb Democratic Party (SDS) received 47.81% of the vote.

Turnout was significantly lower than usual at 35.78%, compared with 53% in the 2022 general election.

More than 1.2 million voters were eligible, and the figures were announced after 92.87% of ballots had been processed.

The new president will serve less than a year, as the next general election is scheduled for October of next year.

The snap vote was called after Milorad Dodik was removed from office and handed a six-year ban on holding political posts. Karan, currently the minister for scientific and technological development of Republika Srpska, said he intends to continue Dodik’s course “with ever greater force.”

“As always when the times were difficult, the Serb people have won,” he said after Dodik announced his victory at the headquarters of the ruling Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD).

Meanwhile, the opposition SDS said it would seek a repeat vote at three polling stations, citing serious irregularities during the electoral process.

Postwar Bosnia consists of the Serb Republic and the Federation — the latter shared by Croats and Bosniaks — and the two entities are tied together through a weak central government.

Pro-Russian separatist leader Milorad Dodik was convicted in February for defying the constitutional court and an international peace envoy, a development that triggered the country’s most serious political crisis since the end of the war three decades ago.

Although he repeatedly dismissed the ruling, he unexpectedly named a loyal ally as his interim successor in October and reversed several separatist laws previously passed in parliament.

A few days later, the United States lifted sanctions on him, his associates and family members, describing the shift as progress toward Bosnia’s “stabilisation.”

By Jeyhun Aghazada