Radio Free Europe analysis: An “election October” in Serbia and Republika Srpska — “mutual aid” between Dodik and Vučić

Radio Free Europe (RSE) has published an analysis of the “election October” in Serbia and in Republika Srpska (RS), where elections are being held on both sides in October. Dušan Spasojević, a professor at the Faculty of Political Sciences in Belgrade, sees the political ties between Milorad Dodik and Aleksandar Vučić as “mutual aid.”

Dodik, the former president of the RS entity, is barred from running for public office (he was removed by a court decision in August 2025 and banned from holding public office for six years), while Vučić is signaling his withdrawal from the Serbian presidency eight months before his term expires, in order to run for prime minister.

According to Spasojević, what will matter for the SNS is what Dodik can “deliver” to Vučić — a number of votes from RS from citizens holding Serbian citizenship, as well as insistence on national themes as an additional argument.

Political analyst Ivana Marić from Sarajevo adds that Vučić is playing a “safe card” in BiH: not only Dodik, but also closer ties with Draško Stanivuković, the mayor of Banja Luka (also seen at Ratko Mladić’s funeral — a criminal offense under BiH law), while the SDS (in whose founding the convicted war criminal Radovan Karadžić played a key role) appears more measured; its candidate Branko Blanuša lost the snap election for RS president by about 11,000 votes (2.75%).

In Serbia, Vučić will face the Student List, which was built by avoiding past themes (Kosovo, Srebrenica, Mladić) and focusing on corruption — but during the campaign they will also have to answer “difficult questions.” Kurt Bassener (Democratization Policy Council) says Mladić’s funeral was imposed as a central theme precisely when elections were announced in both states. Spasojević assesses that Serbia is facing “for the first time in a long time, truly competitive elections.”