Incumbent mayor of Banja Luka, Igor Radojicic from the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) congratulated his opponent Drasko Stanivukovic from the Party of Democratic Progress (PDP) on Monday who won the race for office, based on 86.89 percent of counted ballots, indicating he won 54.56 percent of all the votes.
Stanivukovic won 44,370 votes (54.56 percent), while Radojicic, backed by nine more parties, won 36,953 votes (45.44 percent), the Central Election Commission said.
Radojicic extended his congratulations via Twitter, saying: “I congratulate Mr Drasko Stanivukovic on the election for mayor of Banjaluka. It's a responsible and difficult job. Banja Luka exited the polls and made its choice. I can only wish for my city to be even better,” Radojicic tweeted.
Čestitam g. Drašku Stanivukoviću izbor za gradonačelnika Banjaluke. Odgovoran i težak posao. Banja Luka je izašla na izbore i izabrala. Svome gradu samo mogu poželjeti da bude bolje.
— Igor Radojicic (@RadojicicIgorMr) November 16, 2020
Late Sunday evening, Stanivukovic announced his victory saying after 22 years, Banja Luka finally elected an ordinary man to run the office.
Banja Luka was known as the SNSD's stronghold from where they became the strongest Serb party in the country. The party has been in power in the Serb-dominated Republika Srpska entity for over a decade and during that time, it was always an unavoidable party for the formation of the central government at the state level.
