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Sinisa Karan, a close ally and designated successor of ousted Republika Srpska leader Milorad Dodik, won the entity’s snap presidential election, according to preliminary results announced Sunday.
Bosnia’s Central Election Commission (CIK) said 443,472 of more than 1.2 million eligible voters cast ballots across 2,211 polling stations in Republika Srpska and abroad.
CIK President Jovan Kalaba announced that with 92% of ballots counted, Karan received 50.89% (200,116 votes), ahead of Branko Blanusa of the Serbian Democratic Party, who secured 47.81% (188,010 votes).
Karan, the current minister of scientific and technological development and higher education and former interior minister, was backed by Dodik’s Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD).
Dodik congratulated Karan while acknowledging the low turnout. Declaring victory, Karan said Republika Srpska “posed no threat to anyone” and pledged to continue existing policies “with greater strength.”
Opposition parties claimed irregularities occurred in several cities and said they would appeal for repeat elections in those areas.
Dodik, long known for separatist rhetoric, was stripped of office earlier this year after refusing to recognize the Office of the High Representative (OHR) and High Representative Christian Schmidt.
In June 2023, the Republika Srpska National Assembly decided not to publish Schmidt’s decisions in the entity’s Official Gazette.
Schmidt annulled these moves, and Dodik continued asserting that Republika Srpska would “secede from Bosnia and Herzegovina.”
Dodik was subsequently indicted for “not respecting OHR decisions” and sentenced in February 2025 to one year in prison and a six-year ban from political office, later converted to a fine.
An appeals court upheld the six-year ban in August, removing him from the presidency of Republika Srpska.
With the election results placing him firmly ahead, Karan is poised to assume leadership at a time of heightened political strain within Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Serb-majority entity.
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