Dodik in Bijeljina: Vucic Helped Srpska the Most
At an SNSD pre-election rally in Bijeljina, Dodik said Vucic has done more for Republika Srpska than any other Serbian president, weeks before the October vote.
SNSD leader Milorad Dodik told the party’s central pre-election rally in Bijeljina last night that Aleksandar Vucic has done more for Republika Srpska than any Serbian president before him. The remark comes just over a month before Republika Srpska’s October general elections, and it lands directly in Belgrade’s lap: Dodik is publicly naming Serbia’s sitting president as his key ally at the very moment SNSD enters the final stretch of its campaign.
The rally took place on Wednesday evening, September 9, in the hall of the Vuk Karadzic Elementary School in Bijeljina, starting at 7 p.m. It introduced SNSD’s candidates for Electoral Unit 6 for the National Assembly of Republika Srpska and for Electoral Unit 2 for the House of Representatives of the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Also present were SNSD’s candidate for president of Republika Srpska, Savo Minic, and the party’s candidate for the Serb member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Zeljka Cvijanovic. Among the candidates who addressed the crowd was Mikajlo Lazic, who heads the party’s list for the National Assembly.
Addressing the audience, Dodik said he trusted the honesty of the people of Bijeljina and the wider Semberija region and thanked them for the support the party enjoys there. He also noted how long he has led Republika Srpska.
“I have been at the helm of Republika Srpska for 25 years, in various capacities, and I believe we are in the home stretch of our political fight for Srpska’s status,” Dodik said.
He added that Semberija, thanks to its hardworking farmers, remains the largest beneficiary of the subsidies Republika Srpska pays out, which he said helps the region overcome problems such as drought.
The evening’s central message was about unity within Republika Srpska itself. “Bijeljina must not be pitted against Banja Luka, or the other way around,” Dodik said, adding that the policies of SNSD and its coalition partners apply equally to all of Republika Srpska’s people.
It was in this part of his address that the SNSD leader argued the party’s policy also rests on good relations with Serbia, and that of all Serbia’s presidents, Aleksandar Vucic has shown the greatest interest in Republika Srpska and given it the most help. He then went on to list the party’s other foreign allies:
“We remain committed to Serbia, Russia and Israel, we remain committed to our idea of a free Republika Srpska, one that fights for its identity and for its right to decide for itself,” Dodik said, arguing that the strength of SNSD’s politics rests on the will of the people. “We leave our mark, we are that Republika Srpska, the ones who will never betray it.”
He also pointed to the importance of loyalty to the Serbian Orthodox Church, which he described as part of defending Serb identity.
Speaking from the same podium, Cvijanovic said the pre-election mood pointed to a decisive win for the SNSD ticket and warned that only naive nations end up without a plan or a goal, turning into a plaything in someone else’s hands. “Republika Srpska is ours, we are not leaving, we do not stop building and defending it, and we live for it,” said the candidate for the Serb member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Minic described the October elections as the most important Republika Srpska has faced and said Dodik needs a clear confirmation of the popular will in the places where Srpska’s fate is decided, so that, as he put it, high representatives never return and no one ever raises the property issue again.
“We must not stop, we have no room for luxury. We need an SNSD victory. Deliver it for our children, for our fallen soldiers, for everyone who believes in Republika Srpska,” Minic urged.
Presenting the party’s list for the National Assembly, Lazic said Republika Srpska had defended and developed itself despite the pressure it faces, that wages and pensions are paid on time, and that roads, kindergartens, schools and hospitals are being built. “SNSD always stands with its people, we are here to preserve everything we have built and to make tomorrow better than today in Srpska,” he said.
The Bijeljina rally comes just days after Dodik, as we reported, commented on the cancellation of a televised duel with Dragan Blanusa and said Blanusa should not even be allowed to run for president of Republika Srpska. The combination of a sharper tone toward domestic opposition and a public embrace of Vucic as his biggest ally shows SNSD running its campaign on two tracks at once: one aimed inward, at voters in Republika Srpska, and another aimed at Belgrade, where the relationship with Vucic remains one of the few external themes Dodik is not shying away from during the campaign. Whether that message shifts the course of the race before the October vote will become clear in the coming weeks.
