Bosnian Serb authorities boost neighboring Serbia’s populist leader ahead of a key election

Aleksandar Vucic, the populist leader of Serbia, is preparing for a crucial parliamentary election this weekend. His allies in neighboring Bosnia are doing everything in their power to assist him, including banning rallies supporting a Serbian student movement that poses the biggest threat to his rule. Bosnia boasts a substantial ethnic Serb population with numerous dual nationals, who are eligible to vote in Serbia's election.

The leaders of Bosnia's autonomous ethnic Serbian republic, Republika Srpska, are firm allies of Vucic, but the majority of locals are sympathetic to the student protesters challenging Vucic's dominance in Serbia. Recently, Bosnian Serb police banned two student gatherings in Republika Srpska in support of their counterparts in Serbia, citing security concerns.

The informal student group "Students for students" vowed to take legal action against the authorities, while Bosnian Serb opposition politician Nebojsa Vukanovic denounced the ban as a "disgrace." Political tensions are on the rise ahead of the Serbian vote on Sunday, with both Vucic's Serbian Progressive Party and the student movement's ticket closely neck and neck.

Meanwhile, Bosnian Serb strongman Milorad Dodik and Vucic share close ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Dodik has long advocated for the separation of the Bosnian Serb entity and its merging with Serbia, a notion that has raised concerns about the recurrence of ethnic strife from the region's 1992-95 conflict.