Ally of Bosnian Serb Separatist Leader Leads Election as Opposition Claims Fraud 

An ally of separatist Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik was leading the presidential election in the Serb-run half of Bosnia, according to near-complete preliminary results on Monday, as the opposition claimed a major vote fraud. 
  
The snap vote on Sunday in Republika Srpska was held after Dodik was removed from the presidential office over separatist policies that were stoking instability in the ethnically tense Balkan nation. 
   
Branko Blanusa and other opposition leaders claimed “massive vote rigging” in three towns near the border with Serbia. They alleged the irregularities included illegal “importing of voters” from neighboring Serbia, suspected of casting their ballots for the pro-Dodik candidate. 
 
Dodik was ousted in August, after a Bosnian court convicted him of disobeying the orders of the international High Representative for Bosnia, sentenced him to a year in prison, and banned him from holding any public office for six years. He has since paid a fine to avoid jail and stepped aside as president while staying at the helm of his governing Party of Independent Social Democrats. 
 
Bosnia’s complex political structure was established 30 years ago in a U.S.-brokered peace agreement to end a bloody 1992-95 ethnic conflict that killed more than 100,000 people and left millions homeless. 
 
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