The Central Election Commission of Bosnia and Herzegovina has called early elections for the President of Republika Srpska for November 23, 2025.
Early elections will cost 6,460,000 BAM.
The session discussed whether the candidate for the President of the RS should be from the Serb people or whether he can also be from the Croat and Bosniak people.
The President of the Central Election Commission of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Irena Hadžiabdić, was against the decision, saying that the candidate cannot be from only one people because the right to free elections must be respected without discrimination.
Also, member of the Central Election Commission, Željko Bakalar, voted against the decision, because in his opinion, this issue has a legal gap and this area is not legally regulated. He said that the person with the largest number of votes can be elected, regardless of nationality.
The position of other members of the CEC of BiH is that the candidate for the President of the RS should be from the ranks of the Serb people, because the mandate of the entity president has ended, not the vice-presidents, and that their mandate is still valid.
If the candidates for the President of the RS were from the ranks of the Bosniak or Croat people, this would, as these CEC members pointed out, be confusing for voters and potential candidates, and these candidates would have a “free election campaign for the next elections in 2028”.
When voting on calling early elections, four were in favor, two were against, and one was absent.
The CEC then adopted the Decision on the Conclusion of the Central Voters’ Register for the Election of the President of the RS, as well as the Instructions on the Procedures for Conducting Early Elections.
Recall that the decision to call early elections for the President of Republika Srpska followed after Milorad Dodik was stripped of his mandate due to a final verdict of the Court of BiH, which sentenced him to one year in prison and a six-year ban on holding the office of President of the RS for disobeying the decisions of the High Representative Christian Schmidt. Dodik was subsequently granted permission to replace the prison sentence with a fine.
According to the Election Law of BiH, early elections are to be held within 90 days of the date of termination of the mandate of the President of Republika Srpska. The institutions are required to provide the money for the elections, and the approval will first be signed by the Minister of Finance of BiH.
Minister of Finance Srđan Amidžić has already said that he will not sign the decision, but his deputy Muhamed Hasanović will do so.
