Bosnian Serb leader supporters, opposition protest
Thousands of opponents and supporters of Milorad Dodik, head of the Bosnian Serb-run entity, held rival rallies in Banja Luka Saturday, accusing each other of corruption and treason.
It was the biggest opposition protest against Dodik, who has ruled since 2006 in the Republika Srpska (RS), which along with the Muslim-Croat Federation makes up postwar Bosnia.
Targeted by a probe into financial wrongdoing, Dodik is accused of corruption. He is also blamed for the disastrous economic situation by an opposition that has joined forces from various parts of political spectrum, from the centre to ultra-nationalists.
This opposition has demanded the departure of the RS strongman and called for early elections in the autumn.
Dodik, head of the ruling Union of Independent Social-democrats (SNSD), called the parallel counter-rally in the city centre, several hundred metres (yards) from the opposition protest.
The nationalist leader received the support of Darko Mladic, son of wartime Bosnian Serb military chief Ratko Mladic currently on trial before the Hague-based UN war crimes court for genocide and crimes against humanity committed during the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia.
However Sonja Karadzic Jovicevic decided to join the opposition and bring "a greeting from the heart" of her father, Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb wartime political leader jailed for 40 years by the international justice for war crimes and genocide.
Despite concerns expressed by the Serbian Orthodox Church and Prime Minister of neighbouring Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, no serious incidents were reported during the two rallies, which were divided by a strong police presence.
"Republika Srpska will be better led by real patriots, not by the false ones," Milanko Mihaljica, president of the extreme right radical party in Bosnian Serb entity, told the crowd.
"Mile (Dodik), the thief, thought he scared people. No one can divide Serb people!," said Mladen Bosic, head of the main opposition SDS party, part of the multi-ethnic coalition central government in Bosnia.
Dodik himself, addressing his supporters at the counter-rally, accused the opposition of "betrayal".
He has repeatedly threatened to hold a referendum on independence of Republika Srpska.
Since the end of the 1992-1995 inter-ethnic war that claimed more than 100,000 lives, Bosnia has been divided along ethnic lines into the two semi-independent entities -- Serb-run Republika Srpska and Muslim-Croat Federation -- united by a weak central government.
Sharing a long border with Serbia on the east and stretching along the north of Bosnia, Republika Srpska is populated by some 1.3 million people, mostly ethnic Serbs.