In Republika Srpska (RS), one of the two entities that currently make up the former Yugoslav Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, early elections began on Sunday (23/11/2025) at 07:00 CET to elect a new president to replace Milorad Dodik, the pro-Russian ultranationalist who has dominated politics in that region for nearly 30 years and was ousted last August. A total of 1.2 million voters will be able to vote until 19:00 CET. The first results are expected to appear at 10:00 pm.
Dodik, who has been threatening for years to dismantle Bosnia and establish the independence of the Serb entity, was sentenced to six years in prison and disqualified from holding public office for not adhering to the decisions of the International High Representative Christian Schmidt. The Bosnian Serb leader, who is close to the Kremlin, refused to abide by the ruling, but ended up accepting it and even urged parliament to repeal six separatist laws in October that he himself had been proposing since 2024. Following these steps, the United States lifted sanctions it had imposed on him in 2017 for threatening peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the entire region.
Serbian separatism since the war
The Republika Srpska (Serbs) and the Federation (Croats and Muslims) have made up Bosnia and Herzegovina since the Dayton Peace Agreement brought an end to the three-year civil war that killed 100,000 people, the bloodiest conflict ever to disintegrate the former Yugoslavia. Dodik has been claiming for years that Bosnia and Herzegovina is a failed state and that the Serbian entity should leave the country and join Serbia.
In the election campaign, which took place in the midst of a deep crisis and was marked by hate speech against Bosnian Muslims, Dodik supported the candidacy of his close aide Sinisa Karan, the current Minister of Technology of Republika Srpska. Of the six candidates, none of whom are women, only Karan and Branko Planosa, of the center-right opposition SDS party, have a real chance of winning, a political unknown who promises to bring down corruption and bring the Revolutionary Socialists out of international isolation.
Historian and diplomat Slobodan Soga told AFP that despite Dodik’s decision to step down under pressure from Washington, his political influence remains. “His power remains intact and will only grow over time, simply because he has all the power as long as he leads the party,” he says.
LGC (Effie, AFP)
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