“Milorad Dodik, a close associate of the separatist leader of Republika Srpska, which is part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, won the early presidential elections.”, — write: www.pravda.com.ua
Sinisha Karan, photo from his Facebook page Source: election commission, citing preliminary results, Reuters
Details: It is about former Home Minister Sinish Karan. Karan is a confidant of the pro-Russian ex-president of the Republika Srpska Milorad Dodik.
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Commission Chairman Jovan Kalaba: “According to the preliminary, unofficial and incomplete results, Sinisha Karan won 50.89% of the votes
Kalaba noted that opposition candidate Branko Blanuša from the Serbian Democratic Party (SDS) won 47.81% of the vote.
Turnout was low at 35.78% compared to 53% in the 2022 general election. More than 1.2 million people had the right to vote. The Electoral Commission announced the results based on 92.87% of the votes counted.
The presidential mandate will last less than a year, as general elections are scheduled for October next year.
The election was called after Dodik was stripped of his post and banned from politics for six years.
Karan, who currently serves as Republika Srpska’s Minister of Science and Technology, vowed to continue Dodik’s policies “with even greater force.”
“As always, when times were tough, the Serbian people won,” Karan said after Dodik announced his victory at the headquarters of the ruling Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) party.
SDS said it would demand a repeat vote in three polling stations, citing serious irregularities during the election.
We will remind:
- Pro-Russian separatist Dodik was convicted in February of defying the constitutional court and an international customs envoy, sparking Bosnia’s biggest political crisis since the war ended 30 years ago.
- In August 2025, the sentence of Milorad Dodik for disobeying the decision of the high representative of the international community in Bosnia and Herzegovina was confirmed, after which he was deprived of the mandate of the president of the RS.
- A number of European states introduced their own sanctions against Dodik.