(Banja Luka) The political leader of the Bosnian Serbs, Milorad Dodik, gathered tens of thousands of people on Tuesday evening in Banja Luka (north-west) for a show of force against the Electoral Commission which is recounting the votes of the recent elections. contested by the opposition.
Posted at 5:28 p.m.
The Central Electoral Commission (CIK) on 10 October ordered a recount of the votes for the post of President of the Republika Srpska (RS), the entity of the Bosnian Serbs, at a time when the preliminary results were almost complete and while Milorad Dodik had 48% of the vote, against 43% for opposition candidate Jelena Trivic.
Opposition parties in Republika Srpska cried “fraud” the day after the election. They accuse Milorad Dodik and his party of “organized looting of the elections”.
This vote took place within the framework of the general elections organized on October 2 in the Balkan country of 3.5 million inhabitants, divided along ethnic fault lines into two entities, one Serbian and the other Croat-Muslim.
“I am here tonight to tell you that Milorad Dodik is not going anywhere. Milorad Dodik will be at the presidential palace very soon,” Mr. Dodik told the crowd gathered in the central square of Banja Luka, capital of the Serbian entity.
“As long as the people say I have to be there, I will be there and I will never try to be there against the will of the people,” added the man who rejects the accusations of the opposition.
Its leaders say for their part that their observers have noted “irregularities” in 80% of the polling stations.
The opposition is calling for the organization of a new election, which Milorad Dodik risks refusing.
Mr. Dodik, who has been a Serbian member of the tripartite presidency of Bosnia since 2018, was supported at the rally in particular by the famous Serbian filmmaker Emir Kusturica, one of his advisers. The latter warned against “an attempted coup” targeting the Republika Srpska.
The CIK should finish the recount this week and announce a decision. Its president, Suad Arnautovic, reported on Saturday “an enormous number of violations of the electoral law” and also “unprecedented pressure suffered by the Electoral Commission”.
The main ethnic-nationalist Serb (Orthodox), Bosnian (Muslim) and Croatian (Catholic) parties emerged victorious in the general elections, according to full preliminary results released Saturday for the other tiers of power.