Sinisa Karan wins 50.89 percent of the vote, while his main rival Branko Blanusa gets 47.81 percent, preliminary results show.
Published On 23 Nov 2025
A close ally of Bosnia’s former Serb Republic leader Milorad Dodik, who was ousted from office over his separatist policies, has won the territory’s snap presidential election, according to electoral authorities.
Sinisa Karan of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats party (SNSD) won 50.89 percent of the vote in Sunday’s poll, the election commission’s president Jovan Kalaba told reporters.
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Opposition candidate Branko Blanusa of the Serb Democratic Party (SDS) won 47.81 percent, he said.
The results were based on 92.87 percent of counted votes, the election commission said, adding that 35.78 percent of some 1.2 million eligible voters had turned out for the election.
The presidential mandate will last for less than a year since a general election is scheduled next October.
Dodik, speaking at the SNSD headquarters in Banja Luka, the capital of Bosnian Serb statelet Republika Srpska, called Karan’s win “unquestionable”.
Karan, who currently serves as the Serb Republic minister of scientific and technological development, pledged to continue Dodik’s policies “with ever greater force”.
“As always, when the times were difficult, the Serb people have won,” he added.
The SDS, meanwhile, said it would request the repetition of the vote at three polling stations, citing major election irregularities.
The election was called to replace Dodik after he was stripped of his office and banned from politics for s