Feb 8, 2026, 10:44 p.mFeb 8, 2026, 10:44 p.m
Wants to have won the election in the Serbian part of Bosnia-Herzegovina: Sinisa Karan.Image: keystone
According to information from the campaign staff, the partial repetition of the presidential election in the Serbian part of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Republika Srpska (RS), brought no change. The government candidate, Sinisa Karan, who won the election on November 23rd last year, declared himself the winner again.
His challenger, the opposition candidate Branko Blanusa, admitted defeat. The state election commission in Sarajevo did not publish any results until late Sunday evening. The politicians relied on the number of votes that the assessors of their respective parties had added up at the individual polling stations.
The election was repeated in 136 of around 2,200 polling stations in the RS. The electoral commission ordered this after it found serious irregularities and suspected fraud in the election on November 23rd. Blanusa could theoretically have reversed the result. On Sunday, 84,500 citizens were eligible to vote; Karan, a confidant of the SNSD leader and former RS president Milorad Dodik, won the November election with a lead of less than 10,000 votes.
Irregularities found again
On this election Sunday, election observers also discovered irregularities such as putting pressure on voters and buying votes. “I am not disappointed,” said opposition candidate Blanusa. “This is about systemic problems in the election process that cannot be solved even through the use of scanners and new technologies,” Bosnian media quoted him as saying.
The presidential election in November was made necessary because a court in Sarajevo removed then RS President Dodik last summer because of separatist activities. Dodik determined the fate of the RS for almost two decades. As a Serbian nationalist, he tried to separate the RS from the Bosnian state.
Country divided in two
Since the end of the Bosnian War (1992-1995) 30 years ago, Bosnia-Herzegovina has consisted of two parts of the country: the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina (FBIH), in which mainly Croats and Bosniaks (Muslims) live, and the Republika Srpska, which is predominantly inhabited by ethnic Serbs. The two administrative units are largely independent in areas that do not concern foreign, monetary, defense and security policy. (sda/dpa)