After the opposition candidate won the election for the post of mayor in Banja Luka, the administrative centre of Bosnia’s Serb-majority Republika Srpska (RS) entity, the leader of the ruling RS party, Milorad Dodik, told media that his party has “reconfirmed its power” across the RS but that the Banja Luka election overshadowed this success.
Dodik is the Serb member of Bosnia’s tripartite Presidency and the leader of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD), which holds the position of RS President and RS Prime Minister.
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Local elections in Bosnia took place on Sunday and the apparent win of Drasko Stanivukovic, a member of the Party of Democratic Progress (PDP), was met with surprise.
Stanivukovic will be taking over the post from SNSD member Igor Radojicic.
Dodik told reporters on Monday that the election process was fair and that “it is very important that we had a legitimate election process.”
“This is the moment for me to thank all SNSD voters, we achieved a good result that was overshadowed by the result in Banja Luka. We have consolidated, regrouped, we have good results in many cities,” Dodik said.
He said that the SNSD will have 45 mayoral posts across Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is five more than in the past mandate.
“Logically, we will enter into a coalition with partners,” he said, arguing that 70 percent of voters in Banja Luka chose the parties he named would be part of that coalition.
The SNSD will analyse the election results in Banja Luka on Monday, he said.
“I think that the SNSD has confirmed its strength. We will analyze what happened in Banja Luka at today's session, we have some indications that some of our coalition partners behaved differently that we agreed,” he said.
“One of the best mayors in history is Igor Radojicic and time will show this. The mayor in Banja Luka will not have our support, but our majority will continue to implement our projects because it is important for us that the city starts functioning,” Dodik concluded.
