Scores of citizens gathered in Banjaluka, the administrative centre of Bosnia’s Republika Srpska (RS) entity, on Wednesday for another in a series of protests organized by opposition parties over alleged election fraud.

This time, the protest is taking place in front of the building of the public broadcaster in the entity, RTRS.

The gathering comes after the Appellate Council of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina rejected the appeal of RS opposition parties to annull the elections for the President and Vice President of the RS.

According to those results, Milorad Dodik, the leader of the ruling Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) in the entity, won the election.

However, the opposition has continuously alleged that their candidate, Jelena Trivic, was the winner and that the election should be annulled due to vote rigging. Opposition parties now demand action from judicial institutions.

“I won together with you, and they stole that victory because they are a gang,” said told the crowd at the protest.

She said that the CEC decision to confirm the results is “shameful” and that Dodik’s victory is based on “lies and theft”.

“Why go to the polls if they are going to steal from us again?” she asked.

Trivic said that “there are a million reasons for the protest”, naming the editorial policy of RTRS as one of them and arguing that it is being created by the SNSD.

The leader of Trivic’s Party of Democratic Progress (PDP), Branislav Borenovic, said that “Jelena won” and that the opposition will demand that those behind the “electoral theft” are held responsible.

“You all had the opportunity to see how many ballots and bags are missing, as well as how many invalid ballots there were, and when you add it all up, it’s about 70 thousand ballots. That is why it is important to insist on this until the end. We play this game until the end so we never give up,” he said.

An incident occurred when a man holding pictures of war criminals Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic climbed up on the stage while Milan Radovic from the Serb Democratic Party (SDS) addressed the crowd. The man was swiftly removed from the stage.