A close ally of Milorad Dodik, the former leader of the Serb-run part of Bosnia and Herzegovina who was barred from office over separatist policies that were stoking ethnic tensions, has won the territory’s snap presidential election .

The election commission announced on Sunday that Sinisa Karan, standing for the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats party (SNSD), won 50.89 percent of the vote in the election, which was called to replace Dodik as president after he was stripped of his office and banned from politics for six years.

Dodik, speaking at the SNSD headquarters in Banja Luka, the capital of Bosnian Serb statelet Republika Srpska, called Karan’s win “unquestionable”.

The dismissed leader was ousted in August after a Bosnian court convicted him of disobeying the orders

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