The pro-Russian candidate wins the presidential election in the Serb-majority republic of Bosnia.

BarcelonaSiniša Karan, candidate of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) and a trusted advisor of the pro-Russian ultranationalist Milorad Dodik, He won Sunday's snap presidential election in Republika Srpska with 50.3% of the vote, according to preliminary results from the Electoral Commission of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

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.

Dodik celebrated the victory emphatically: "Our candidate, Siniša Karan, has won today's elections. There is no doubt about it," he proclaimed to his supporters at the party headquarters in Banja Luka, the capital of Republika Srpska. "They wanted to remove Dodik through an unfair process; now they have two Dodiks and they'll have to deal with us every day," he asserted, thus ensuring that the vote has further strengthened his power.

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. He has also described Bosnian Muslims as a "destructive" force against Serbs and continues to deny the Srebrenica genocide.

Allegation of irregularities

The opposition Democratic Party, which won 48.4% of the vote, does not recognize Karan's victory and alleges serious irregularities in three localities. "These elections are not over yet. They will end when the electoral process is repeated in Doboj, Zvornik, and Laktaši, where, due to manipulation, the results do not reflect the will of the people," said Karan's main rival, Branko Blanuša, of the Serbian Democratic Party (SDS). The SDS claims to have evidence of irregularities at several polling stations, while local organizations have also pointed to incidents such as a lack of election materials and obstruction of the work of election observers. A 56-year-old electrical engineering professor and until now a relatively unknown figure, Blanuša focused his campaign on fighting corruption and halting the "capture of the state" that he attributes to Dodik and the SNSD.