Born in Sanski Most, Ivanić has lived in Banja Luka since 1971, when he earned his university diploma in economics there.

He then received a doctorate in Belgrade; the thesis was titled Contemporary Marxist political economy in the West.

Ivanić's political career began in 1988, when he became a member of the Presidency of SR Bosnia and Herzegovina during Yugoslav Socialist times.

[2] Ivanić is a founding member of the center-right Bosnian Serb Party of Democratic Progress (PDP) and was its president from 1999 to 2015.

The Alliance for Change, a coalition formed around the Serb Democratic Party and Ivanić's PDP, amongst some other parties as well, announced on 14 July 2014 that Ivanić would run in the Bosnian general election as a candidate for Bosnia and Herzegovina's three-person Presidency member, representing the Serbs.

[3] At the general election, held on 12 October 2014, Ivanić was elected to the Presidency, having obtained 48.71% of the vote, narrowly beating the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats' (SNSD) candidate, the Republika Srpska prime minister Željka Cvijanović, who obtained 47.56% of the vote.

I think that the judiciary was a mechanism of political action of international representatives in Bosnia and that it did not prove to be good at all.

A restitution law had at one time been created in Bosnia, but fell by the wayside because the process would be too complicated.

In an interview with web portal European Western Balkans in January 2016, he stated that "by joining the EU, Bosnia and Herzegovina would receive rules that were developed by a third party, and thus internal differences would become less important.

Ivanić mentioned the slowness of the Bosnian authorities in making decisions as possible difficulties that the country could face, and pointed out that this is why reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina is needed.