Milorad Dodik, Photo: REUTERS
Agence France-Presse writes tonight from Banja Luka that the aim of today’s snap presidential elections in Republika Srpska (RS) “is to end a period of turmoil in Bosnia and Herzegovina in which the struggle for power between Milorad Dodik, a close ally of Moscow, and the United Nations High Representative, tasked with monitoring the 1995 peace agreement, has plunged the country into its most serious political crisis since the end of the 1992-1995 interethnic war.”
AFP notes that Dodik led RS for two decades “before the (BiH) court removed him after a severe political crisis.”
The agency writes that the High Representative has broad powers: he can impose or change laws, and dismiss elected officials, which are “prerogatives that Dodik constantly denounces, repeatedly threatening secession and insulting the current international envoy, Christian Schmidt, a former German minister who arrived in 2021.”
AFP reports that Dodik said today in his hometown of LaktaÅ¡i that “these elections were organized by Bosnian Muslims and Schmidt” that they “wanted to defeat us in Republika Srpska, and now the people have a chance to defeat them” and that he added: “Republika Srpska first!”.
The agency quoted a retired economist who is “making ends meet” and said that “What we have had so far is terrible… (…) He (Dodik) stole everything from us; he should be helping the poor, not taking money for himself!” she exclaimed.
The text says that the favorites are expected to be SiniÅ¡a Karan (63), a former interior minister and a man of Dodik’s trust, and the relatively unknown Branko BlanuÅ¡a, a 56-year-old university professor of electrical engineering, whose candidacy is supported by several opposition parties.
Having defied the ruling of the Bosnian court, Dodik accepted the choice of successor, just before Washington lifted sanctions against him that had been in place for almost 10 years due to his separatist policies, AFP reports.
The agency states that during the campaign, Dodik claimed that a vote for his favorite Karan was actually a vote for himself and his policies, repeatedly stating that “BiH is an ‘impossible country’ and that Republika Srpska is a ‘state’ that must ‘wait’ for international recognition.”
Thus, AFP reports the statement of a pensioner who said in LaktaÅ¡i that he voted today for Dodik’s Sinisa Karan “because he wants Milorad Dodik’s policies to continue” and said that “all this is a big farce orchestrated by the West… but Dodik has the support of the people.”
In contrast, opposition presidential candidate Branko Blanusa “explained that Republika Srpska is primarily ‘threatened’ by his opponent’s policies: ‘He (Dodik) humiliated the institutions of Republika Srpska for the sake of his own interests and wealth and that is why he is now on the blacklist of the people,'” the AFP agency wrote at the end of the article.
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