Bosnian Serbs Head To Polls To Choose New President After Toxic Campaign

By Azem Kurtic

Early elections for the presidency of the Serb-dominated Republika Srpska entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina are being held on Sunday, as 1.2 million registered voters choose a successor to Milorad Dodik after a campaign marred by discriminatory rhetoric.

Preliminary polls suggest the two front-runners are Sinisa Karan, a member of Dodik’s Alliance of Independent Social Democrats, SNSD, and Branko Blanusa, from the Serbian Democratic Party, SDS, who is supported by the opposition parties in the entity.

The election campaign, instead of running for a month as usual, opened only two weeks before the vote – and has focused mostly on social media, with little effort invested in rallies or billboards.

“The campaign didn’t really bring anything interesting, as it was kind of for