Topic: Milorad Dodik

Milorad Dodik (Serbian: Милорад Додик) (born March 12, 1959), is the President of Republika Srpska, and the president of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) political party. He graduated from the Belgrade University of Political Sciences .

Dodik graduated from the Faculty of Political Science at the University of Belgrade. From 1986 through 1990 he was the President of the Executive Board of the Municipal Assembly of Laktaši (i.e. mayor). 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 War in Bosnia, he served as a representative in the National Assembly of the 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 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 Milorad Dodik is President. In 1997, he was elected into the National Assembly of the Republika Srpska and then became the majority leader in national assembly.