Barred Bosnian Serb chief Dodik’s social gathering wins presidential election | Elections News | USAEMALL.com

Milorad Dodik, who wants Republika Srpska to break from Bosnia, had said victory of Sinisa Karan would be ‘my victory too’.

A close ally of Milorad Dodik, the former leader of the Serb-run part of Bosnia and Herzegovina who was barred from office over separatist policies that were stoking ethnic tensions, has won the territory’s snap presidential election.

The election commission announced on Sunday that Sinisa Karan, standing for the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats party (SNSD), won 50.89 percent of the vote in the election, which was called to replace Dodik as president after he was stripped of his office and banned from politics for six years.

Dodik, speaking at the SNSD headquarters in Banja Luka, the capital of Bosnian Serb statelet Republika Srpska, called Karan’s win “unquestionable”.

The dismissed leader was ousted in August after a Bosnian court convicted him of disobeying the orders of the international High Representative for Bosnia, who oversees the implementation of the 1995 Dayton Accords, which ended the bloody three-and-a-half-year Bosnian war.

He had repeatedly clashed with High Representative Christian Schmidt, declaring his decisions illegal in Republika Srpska, which is controlled by Bosnian Serbs.

The other half of the country is run jointly by Bosniaks, who are mainly Muslims, and Croats. The two entities are bound together by a central administration.

Dodik, who still advocates eventual separation of Republika Srpska from Bosnia, paid a fine to stay away from jail and stepped aside as president while staying at the helm of his governing SNSD party.

Sunday’s snap ballot, which was called after his ouster, pitted Karan against Branko Blanusa, a university professor who is a candidate of the opposition Serb Democratic Party.

Prior to the vote, Karan said that democratic elections were “a way to strengthen our peace and stability” and to “strengthen the institutions of our Republika Srpska and our entire republic”.

But Dodik appeared to be intent on remaining in the driving seat, telling voters that “I will remain with you to fight for our political goals”, and Karan’s “victory will be my victory too”.

Bosnia’s complex political structure was established 30 years ago by the United States-brokered Dayton peace agreement, ending the 1992-95 ethnic conflict that killed more than 100,000 people and left millions homeless.

The war started when Bosnia declared independence from Yugoslavia and the country’s Serbs took up arms to carve up their own territory, hoping to join with neighbouring Serbia.