The Bosnian Serb leader’s claim that the opposition is plotting to kidnap trucks with ballots in order to disturb the October election is a spin, according to analysts, while the opposition called on Milorad Dodik to watch fewer action movies.
Dodik, who is currently the President of the Bosnian Serb part of the country, Republika Srpska (RS), said a few days ago that the opposition not only plans to hijack the trucks with the ballots but that it also plans to stage demonstrations during the election silence in order to have the Election Commission cancel the vote in Banja Luka, the administrative capital of Republika Srpska.
“I can’t believe the fear Mr. Dodik lives in,” Vukota Govedarica, the head of the Serb Democratic Party and one of Dodik’s most vocal opponents, said on Saturday.
“The constructions he came up with, I would not be able to find even in Spielberg’s movies,” he said.
The truck kidnapping script reminds journalist Aleksandar Trifunovic of ‘Die Hard’, starring Bruce Willis.
“We are witnessing paranoia combined with lack of imagination,” Trifunovic said. “What Mr Dodik has described sounds a lot like a part in Die Hard with Bruce Willis and with trucks used to plunder the Federal Reserve Bank.”
Trifunovic explained that for several months the public is exposed to perceived scenarios aimed at convincing people that if the current government loses the election, it will not be because of the will of voters but because someone stole , hijacked and paid some people to destroy Republika Srpska.
If such a plot exists, it should have been reported to the police and not to the public, said journalist Sinisa Vukelic.
However, pre-election stories often leave facts out, he said.
“The election material is not arriving to Banja Luka. It is being printed in the Banja Luka Atlantik printing company for the past two or three elections,” Vukelic said. “Besides that, Banja Luka does not need 50 trucks of election material. This is not a multi-million city,” he added.
The Central Election Commission has awarded a consortium of printing companies led by Atlantik to produce the ballots. Apart from Atlantik, the consortium consists of another three Banja Luka companies, one for Laktasi, near Banja Luka, and one from Sarajevo.
