From Dodik to Karan: The Trojka still powerless, Dodik and Čović still influential

Written by: A. Čorbo-Zećo

The change at the helm of the Republika Srpska, after Milorad Dodik "handed over" the position to Siniša Karan, has not brought any substantive change to the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The difficult political and institutional situation remains exactly the same as before, not an inch further.

Dodik himself emphasized an important message in his weekly review on his X account, when he wrote that the people once again showed whom they trust when it is hardest:

"Whom they give their trust to move forward, peacefully and with dignity."

A message that resonates. It is hard to digest all the fascist folklore that Dodik demonstrated during the election campaign, in which he once again confirmed that he is a confirmed hater of Bosniaks, or, as he provocatively simplifies, Muslims, thereby reducing one nation to a religious group. And all the fairy tales about a large number of votes for Blanuša and the stories about SNSD thefts are no consolation.

At the same time, the Trojka (SDP, Naša stranka and NiP), burdened by scandals and internal party turmoil, persistently ignores the fact that they have not succeeded in removing SNSD from power, thereby further strengthening the status quo. The unlit excavators have further complicated an already difficult situation.

Instead of addressing key problems and seeking real solutions, they too often compare themselves to SDA, DF and SBiH, trying to relativize their own failures.

Now they present themselves as an opposition within the government, a strange and almost insane situation. That is how Elmedin Konaković himself expressed it, claiming that they are not opponents of the SDA, but of the system they created. And yet, three years later, that system remains unchanged.

At the same time, Dragan Čović remains a "fixed point" for everyone, the central point around which political schemers still revolve, while citizens watch political actors waste energy on mutual conflicts instead of focusing on real reforms.

In practice, the change at the top of the RS has changed nothing. BiH remains stuck in a vicious circle of inertia, while the political elite persistently chooses comparisons and the politics of fear instead of concrete solutions, which are nowhere in sight.