Bosnian Serb Parties Haggle Over Dodik's Successor

As Bosnia starts preparing for autumn general elections, only one candidate's name is known for now, that of Mladen Ivanic.

The current member of Bosnia's state presidency will be the candidate of the main opposition bloc in the country's mainly Serbian entity, Republika Srpska, the Alliance for Changes.

The main board of Ivanic's Party of Democratic Progress, PDP, supported his candidacy at a meeting in Banja Luka on Sunday.

However, it is not clear which position Ivanic will be nominated for - as member of the state presidency, or as President of Republika Srpska.

"Ivanic would rather run for the BiH [state] presidency but we have to talk to our coalition partners about it, especially the Serbian Democratic Party, SDS," a PDP source told BIRN.

Three other names are in the mix for the opposition bloc, all from the SDS: Mirko Sarovic, Bosnia's Minister of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations, Vukota Govedarica, MP in the RS parliament and president of the SDS, and Mico Micic, the mayor of the town of Bijeljina.

But the SDS is still undecided about which of them should run - and for which position.

The former president of the SDS, Mladen Bosic, was not a candidate for the position of president Republika Srpska.

The situation is not much clearer in the ruling coalition in the RS.

The RS President and the head of the ruling Alliance of Independent Social Democrats, SNSD, Milorad Dodik, has clear that his party will field candidates for both key functions - the RS presidency and the Bosnian presidency.

But the RS's coalition partner, the Democratic People's Alliance, DNS, has also said that it wants to have a candidate for at least one of those two seats.

Coalition talks have not been held yet, so it...