DODIK: DESPITE UNEQUAL CONDITIONS, SNSD WILL WIN DECISIVE ELECTION VICTORY

BANJA LUKA, JULY 3 /SRNA/ – SNSD President Milorad Dodik stated his party had agreed to participate in the upcoming elections despite unequal conditions, adding that it would secure a decisive victory against the international community.

"We are not defeating our political opponents here. We are defeating the international community's intention to once again undermine Republika Srpska," Dodik told reporters in Banja Luka. He warned that the upcoming election process could involve attempts at electoral engineering and manipulation of results through electronic voting systems. According to Dodik, the ultimate objective of such efforts is to artificially create a larger number of weak political parties, producing the kind of fragmentation that currently exists within the domestic opposition. Dodik noted that Germany's Federal Constitutional Court had abolished electronic voting because of concerns over transparency and security, while, he said, the model is being imposed in BiH under pressure from international actors. "Foreigners have imposed this on us again to make everything more complicated and weaken our position. They know very well that only state-building nations have strong leaders and strong political parties with the support of the people," Dodik said. He believes that previous pressure has been aimed at politically removing the President of Republika Srpska and that the new voting system now has the intention to create additional confusion among voters. Dodik said voters would no longer see clearly printed candidate lists on their ballots but instead would have to remember codes and numbers, describing this as a difficult adjustment for people who are only beginning to adapt to digital technologies. "They are imposing this on us even though it does not exist in five countries around the world. If it is such a good system, why is it not used in the United Kingdom, France, Austria, Germany or Italy? The sole purpose of these changes is to weaken the institutional strength of Republika Srpska," Dodik said.