A citizens association said it will urge ethnic Bosniaks and Croats living in Bosnia's Serb-dominated semi-autonomous Republika Srpska (RS) entity to boycott the vote for the member of the state Presidency from the RS, should the incumbent Mladen Ivanic continue to ignore them.

Bosnia's three Presidency members are elected from the country's two semi-autonomous entities. The Serb member is elected from Republika Srpska, while the Croat and Bosniak members are elected from the Federation, the entity shared by Bosniaks and Croats.

The Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD), lead by RS President Milorad Dodik, is currently in power in the RS but the RS representatives in the state institutions come from the opposition Alliance for Changes, a coalition of parties.

According to the „Odgovor” (Answer) association, led by the former Mayor of Srebrenica Camil Durakovic, votes from Bosniak and Croat post-war returnees to the RS were crucial to the 2014 election of Mladen Ivanic, from the Alliance for Changes, to the Presidency.

Ivanic is up for reelection, and he is running against Dodik for Bosnia's Presidency. Should Ivanic not address the issues Bosniaks and Croats face in the RS, Odgovor warned it will call upon Bosniaks and Croats to boycott the upcoming state Presidency election.

According to the association, since he became Presidency member thanks to Bosniak and Croat votes, Ivanic has „done nothing” for them.

„(…) It is clear we can not allow ourselves to once again vote for the „lesser evil”, which is why we will call for a boycott if needed,” Odgovor declared.

The association said should eight or nine thousand people take part in the boycott, the post would be handed to Dodik in the upcoming election.

“Mladen Ivanic cannot win against Dodik without votes from Bosniaks and Croats in the RS, so if he does not offer us a concrete platform and publicly state his stance on the Bosnian language, discrimination in employment, unfair budget distribution, the position of Bosniaks and Croats in the RS political system, we are ready to decide these elections with a boycott of the vote for the Presidency,” the association said.

“If his (Ivanic’s) moderate stance consists of not offending us directly and publicly, he can forget about the votes from Bosniaks from Kozarac, Kotorski, Vrbanja, Konjevic Polje, Izbisno and Voljavice,” Odgovor declared.