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Allies of separatist Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik were leading the presidential election in the Serb-run half of Bosnia, according to nearly complete preliminary results on Monday, as the opposition claimed a massive vote fraud.
The snap vote was held in Republika Srpska on Sunday after Dodik was removed from the presidential office over separatist policies that fueled instability in the ethnically tense Balkan nation.
Dodik’s ally Sinisa Karan won about 50% of the ballots cast, while his main rival Branko Blanusa won about 48%, with about 99% of the votes counted.
Blanusa and other opposition leaders claimed “massive vote rigging” in three towns near the border serbiaHe alleged that irregularities included the illegal “importation of voters” from neighboring Serbia, who were suspected of voting for a pro-Dodik candidate,
“These elections are not over yet, they will end when the election process (in the three cities) is repeated where the results do not reflect the will of the people due to electoral manipulation,” Blanusa said. “If we were to give up now, we would be just like them – we would deceive and betray people.”
Dodik was ousted in August after a Bosnian court convicted him of disobeying orders of the International High Representative for Bosnia, sentenced him to a year in prison and banned him from holding any public office for six years. He has since paid a fine to avoid jail and stepped down from the presidency while remaining at the helm of his governing party, the Independent Social Democrats.
Dodik declared Karan’s victory on Sunday and criticized the proceedings that led to his ouster from the presidency.
He said, “They wanted to bring Dodik down in an unfair process and now they’ve got two Dodiks and they’re going to keep an eye on us every day.”
Karan said that “we will continue from where we left off.”
The Bosnian Serbs are in charge of about half of Bosnia. The other half is jointly run by Bosniaks, who are mainly Muslims And Croat. The two institutions are tied together by a central administration.
Four more contenders took part in Sunday’s race.
Bosnia’s complex political structure was established 30 years ago in a US-brokered peace deal to end a bloody 1992-95 ethnic conflict that left more than 100,000 people dead and millions homeless.
The war began when Bosnia declared independence Yugoslavia And the country’s Serbs took up arms to form their own region in hopes of uniting with neighboring Serbia. Dodik still advocates secession of the Serb-controlled entity from Bosnia, which he has repeatedly declared unfeasible.
Dodik faced America and British Restrictions for such policies. But last month the United States lifted sanctions after Dodik agreed to step down. He has also repeatedly clashed with international peace envoy Christian Schmidt and declared his decisions in Republika Srpska illegal.