РУССКИЙ
11:59 26.11.2025 •
Milorad Dodik, former president of the Bosnian Serb Republic (right), and Sinisa Karan attend a press conference after preliminary results indicated Karan won a snap presidential election in Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina, November 23, 2025.
Photo: Reuters
Bosnian Serb voters on Sunday elected an ally of their dismissed leader Milorad Dodik to replace him, preliminary results indicated, in a snap vote intended to settle months of political turbulence, ‘France 24’ reports.
Dodik was ejected from office in August following his conviction for ignoring rulings by Christian Schmidt, the international appointee who oversees a peace deal which has held Bosnia together since the end of its 1990s inter-ethnic war.
The conflict left the country split into two semi-autonomous halves – the Serb-run Republika Srpska (RS) and a Bosniak-Croat federation – linked by weak central institutions.
Sunday's vote was seen as a crucial test of support for Dodik's nationalist SNSD party, which has been in power for nearly two decades in the Bosnian Serb statelet.
The electoral commission published results showing that with votes counted from nearly 93 percent of polling stations, Sinisa Karan led with 50.9 percent of the vote, ahead of his challenger Branko Blanusa on 47.8 percent.
"Today's election was won by our candidate Sinisa Karan. That is unquestionable," Dodik told supporters at his nationalist party's headquarters in Banja Luka.
Karan, a 63-year-old former interior minister, is a close ally and personal choice of Dodik, who remains head of his party, the Union of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD).
"I see this personally as support for me as well, in almost impossible circumstances," Dodik said late Sunday.
"They wanted to remove Dodik through an entirely unfair political process... and now they ended up with two Dodiks. They will be seeing that every day."
Earlier this year, Dodik was convicted and banned from public office for six years for flouting Schmidt's decisions.
After months of defying the ruling, the 66-year-old leader, who has close ties to the Kremlin, suddenly accepted his removal in October.
Within days, the United States dropped sanctions against Dodik and several of his associates, which had been in place since 2017. Karan, under sanctions since January, was among them.
"The Serb people have now given a decisive answer: 'No' to any foreigner, 'No' to anyone who seeks to usurp the will of the Serb people," Karan told his supporters in Banja Luka late Sunday.
Karan, 63, a former Interior Minister and current Minister of Technology, was the candidate's personal choice of the separatist Dodik to replace him after he was sentenced last August to a six-year ban from holding public office for disobeying the decisions of the international high-ranking official Christian Schmidt, who was in charge of overseeing compliance with the Dayton Peace Agreement.
"Schmidt and his supporters wanted to disrupt the system of government established 30 years ago. I will not give in. We will continue with even greater strength," Karan said on Sunday, after his party declared him the winner. "The Serbian people have given a resounding answer today to any foreigner, to any usurper," he added.
Republika Srpska, with a Serb majority, is one of the two entities that make up Bosnia and Herzegovina since the 1995 Dayton Accords ended a war that left nearly 100,000 dead. In the other entity, the Federation, the majority of the population is Muslim and Croat. Dodik supports the secession of Republika Srpska, contrary to the agreements that, intended to end the war, ultimately institutionalized the ethnic division of Bosnia.
Karan's term will be brief: he will hold office for less than a year, until the general elections scheduled for October 2026. However, these elections are seen as a key test to gauge the mobilization capacity of the Dodik's nationalist projectwho has dominated the politics of Republika Srpska for almost two decades. The Bosnian Serb leader has repeatedly threatened to break up Bosnia, which he calls a "failed state," and to integrate Republika Srpska into Serbia.
The opposition Democratic Party, which won 48.4% of the vote, does not recognize Karan's victory and alleges serious irregularities in three localities.
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