Given that the anticipated plans and programmes were once again absent, justified by the claim that the mandate would not last even a year, the campaign content was reduced to the spectacle of uniting and splitting along the lines of disciplined allegiance to a political bloc. Instead of articulating society’s needs through clear visions, options and solutions that could be implemented through public policies, society was successfully steered through a ritualised gesture of representative democracy.
On 9th February, the Central Election Commission confirmed and published the results of the early presidential election in the Republika Srpska. Siniša Karan of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) won 224,384 votes, while the runner-up, Branko Blanuša of the Serb Democratic Party (SDS), received 10,841 fewer. A total of 452,212 of the 1,264,366 voters registered in the Central Voters Register turned out for the early and repeated election for the president of the Republika Srpska. Although the register contained 5,044 more names than in the 2022 general elections, 224,543 fewer voters turned out than in the regular general elections. By comparison, that is more than the total number of votes won by the victorious candidate. This time, the winner received over 75,000 fewer votes than the victorious candidate from the same bloc in the 2022 general elections, while the runner-up received around 60,000 fewer votes than the candidate from the same bloc in the previous general elections. Both blocs on the right side of the political spectrum, however, should reflect on this crisis of trust.
As a reminder, the early election for the president of the Republika Srpska was called following the judgment against Milorad Dodik, which banned him from political activity for a period of six years. Since then, Milorad Dodik has continued to act politically, seeking to destabilise the democratic order through speculation about affirming the rule of men, derogating the rule of law, denying the legal state, and attempting the total nullification of the democratic system. In doing so, he succeeds with considerable support from mass media outlets he controls or that are sympathetic to him, not hesitating during the campaign to use all means from public sources of financing, including the privileges of the entity’s president, a function he no longer holds. Judging by the election results, he will certainly continue to do so.
Conflict on the Right-Wing
The frontrunners in the early election for the president of the Republika Srpska entered the race without programmes, but with clear agendas. They share the view that the election was imposed by the judgment and by the interventionism of Christian Schmidt, the High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which they deem unacceptable in this democratic order. However, both frontrunners designed their campaigns in relation to the dominant system of values: one would continue to respect it, while the other allegedly sought to change it from the ground up.
The focus of Siniša Karan’s (SNSD) campaign revolved around the familiar narratives of this political bloc, and there was no shortage of hate speech, homophobia and Islamophobia. Themes of the illegality and illegitimacy of the High Representative prevailed, alongside questions of state property and manipulations concerning the Dayton Peace Agreement, while the campaign was dominated by Milorad Dodik, who kept appearing as the central figure of the campaign instead of the candidate.
The focus of Branko Blanuša’s (SDS) campaign was on the status of institutions, the management of public resources, the position of the veterans, and the treatment of natural wealth. The dominant rhetoric framed support for calling the election and the withdrawal of the ban on holding it as a major humiliation of the RS National Assembly, “one of the saddest and most shameful events in the recent history of the RS.” Other prevailing themes included opposition to granting the United States critical mineral raw materials for extraction, advocacy for improving the status of the veterans, and criticism of the misuse of public resources.
International observers assess that the campaign was marked by polarisation and inflammatory rhetoric and that it did not address the real problems people face. “There was general reluctance across the political spectrum to participate in the early election, which many political actors viewed as imposed by the BiH authorities and the OHR, and as a significant strain on financial resources ahead of the 2026 elections. The campaign focused on issues related to national identity and state structure, and did not address broader social and economic issues. The frontrunners, Siniša Karan of SNSD and Branko Blanuša of SDS, opted for a restrained campaign, while the other four contestants remained inactive and less visible,” states the assessment of the electoral process by ODIHR, observers from the Congress of the Council of Europe, and observers from the European Parliament.
Given that the anticipated plans and programmes were once again absent, justified by the claim that the mandate would not last even a year, the campaign content was reduced to the spectacle of uniting and splitting along the lines of disciplined allegiance to a political bloc. Instead of articulating society’s needs through clear visions, options and solutions that could be implemented through public policies, society was successfully steered through a ritualised gesture of representative democracy. Yet the question remains whether abstention is truly the answer to the current conditions of political accountability, unclear programmes and immeasurable goals. In doing so, the power, interests and motivations of voters must inevitably be assessed, given that the election unfolded in an atmosphere of mutual confrontation on the right side of the political spectrum.
Irregularities of the Electoral Process
Numerous malpractices, manipulations, irregularities and doubts regarding the validity of the electoral mechanism were recorded during the election process.
An unregulated voters register and the failure to apply digital systems for the verification and processing of votes in this election significantly increased the risk of intentional abuse and manipulation. Numerous irregularities and disputes further undermined public trust in the voting process. These were among the last elections held without the use of new technologies: optical scanning of ballots and the automatic processing of results. While the current electoral mechanism increases the risk of errors and manipulation, leads to diminished trust, numerous suspicions of irregularities and a heightened risk of disputes, the engagement of institutions responsible for monitoring has proven weak and vulnerable.
The Coalition for Free and Fair Elections “Pod lupom” maintains that the overall picture of election day cannot be viewed exclusively through findings from polling stations, because during the vote a significant number of indications of electoral irregularities were recorded relating to events beyond the scope of direct observation at polling stations, including pressure on voters in the vicinity of polling stations, the keeping of parallel records of voter turnout, indications of single-party composition of polling station committees, allegations of politically connected presidents of polling station committees, as well as possible vote buying. “The scale and frequency of these cases create justified suspicion regarding the full regularity of election day. In such a context, despite the formal observance of procedures at most polling stations, the impact of irregularities on the electoral will of voters cannot be fully excluded,” the preliminary assessment of election day states. This assessment – the Coalition believes – confirms that technologies in the form of electronic voter identification and ballot scanners must be applied at all polling stations, which would prevent proven electoral irregularities that are also the reason the election was repeated. In addition, the police and the prosecutor’s office must urgently prosecute all forms of illegal pressure on voters so that election results reflect the genuine will of citizens; the election administration must be freed of any political influence in accordance with the law; and institutions must encourage the conduct of independent election observation and facilitate observers’ access to polling stations.
Transparency International in BiH warned during the campaign of numerous irregularities in the electoral process, as well as many shortcomings of the electoral mechanism. The organisation called on the competent judicial institutions to examine the evidence collected by the Central Election Commission regarding mass electoral fraud that has been repeating itself over several election cycles according to the same pattern. The uncovered electoral fraud prompted many citizens to contact the CEC with inquiries seeking information on whether someone had voted in their name, and at some sessions the CEC rejected such requests for access to information without conducting a public interest test, explaining that this would require the work of a larger number of officials, Transparency International in BiH recalls. They consider it extremely important to prove electoral manipulation and note that testimony from citizens whose identities were misused can assist in this process. They also warn of record voting speeds at some polling stations, where voting lasted as little as 53 seconds. Particular attention is paid to monitoring campaign spending, where multiple breaches were identified of the amount of BAM 0.30 per registered voter, which is the statutory norm in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Outcome
The new president of the Republika Srpska has only one task: to step aside and allow the party leader to play the main role. He already fulfilled that task successfully in the interval between the early election and its repeat. He left it to the party leadership to court Zionists in Israel, to network with sovereigntists in Hungary, to intercept conservative Republicans in the corridors in the United States… Instead of meeting the expectations and needs of citizens, he will have to honour everything the party leadership has promised to allies, the key players of the order whose link the hybrid regime of Milorad Dodik seeks to become. Although it is uncertain whether this will be sufficient to ensure the survival of the hybrid regime even after the general elections in October this year, it is certain that the promises made will turn into concrete demands of foreign administrations, and that appropriate solutions to those demands will have to be delivered by the regime in a new guise.
In that arena of destabilisation, pauperisation and resource exploitation, paradoxically, the key role will not be played by the network of leaders of the hybrid regime, but precisely by institutions. And by all those concerned with the fate of the fragile democratic order, such as civil society and citizens.