Milorad Dodik

Milorad Dodik (Serbian Cyrillic: Милорад Додик, pronounced [milorǎd dɔdik]; born March 12, 1959) is a Bosnian Serb politician and president of Republika Srpska since 2010. He serves as a president for a second term. Previously, he was a prime minister of Republika Srpska for two terms, between 1998 and 2001, and between 2006 and 2010.

Early life

Dodik was born in Laktaši to Bogoljub and Mira Dodik. He lived in Laktaši where he attended elementary school. In 1978 he graduated from an agricultural highschool in Banja Luka, after which he entered the Faculty of Political Sciences at the University of Belgrade, where he graduated in 1983.

Political career

From 1986 through 1990 he was the Chairman of the Executive Board of the Municipal Assembly of Laktaši. In 1990, in the first multi-party elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina he was elected to the Parliament of the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as a candidate of the Union of Reform Forces. During the Bosnian War, he served as a representative in the National Assembly of Republika Srpska. During that time, he formed the Independent Members of Parliament Caucus (Клуб независних посланика у Народној Скупштини Републике Српске, Klub nezavisnih poslanika u Narodnoj Skupštini Republike Srpske), which was the only political opposition to the Serb Democratic Party (Српска демократска странка, Srpska demokratska stranka), which held the absolute majority in the war-time parliament of the Republika Srpska. The caucus he chaired was to form the core of the Party of Independent Social Democrats (Stranka nezavisnih socijaldemokrata, or SNSD) in 1996, after the peace was signed as a result of the Dayton Agreement. He was elected as the first President of SNSD. The party later united with another social-democratic party to form the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats, of which Dodik is President.