The ruling party in Bosnia’s Serb-majority Republika Srpska entity submitted on Tuesday criminal charges against members of Bosnia’s election authority and judges who upheld their decision to annul the 2020 local election results in the towns of Srebrenica and Doboj.

Bosnia’s Central Election Commission (CEC) annulled the November 15 local election results for the towns of Doboj and Srebrenica due to numerous irregularities and alleged election fraud.

The Chairman of Bosnia’s tripartite Presidency and leader of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD), Milorad Dodik, argued that the CEC decision was the result of a plot between the CEC members and Bosniak political representatives and the party complained to the state court about it.

The Court of BiH, however, rejected the complaint.

This led to the party submitting charges against judges at the BiH Court as well.

“Today, the SNSD submitted a criminal complaint against six members of the BiH CEC and three judges of the BiH Court of Appeals. The criminal charges refer to the criminal offences of negligent work in the service and violations of the law by judges in connection with the criminal offence of electoral fraud,” advisor for legal issues of the leader of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD), Marko Sukalo, told RTRS.

He said the complaint “protects the interests of the Republika Srpska and creates preconditions for seeking justice before international courts as well.”

Sukalo said that the SNSD is also preparing an appeal to the BiH Constitutional Court and that, if it fails, the party will raise the issue with the European Court for Human Rights.

The CEC has meanwhile set the date for the repeated local election in Srebrenica and Doboj for February 21.