When the election authorities in Bosnia stripped Milorado Dodik as president of his post’s small Serbian majority stateret republika srpska, he did his best to be outrageous. Instead, the divisive and denial nationalists defining his own challenge to the institutions that were trying to defeat him.
“What if you refuse?” he asked.
Bosnia may be trying to find it.
Dodik, a major Balkan ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has been in and around Bosnia since 2006, choosing the country’s patchwork multi-ethnic state stitches. The state was born in 1995 by the Dayton Peace Agreement. This halted the violence that spread across former Yugoslavia when it collapsed in the 1990s.
Dayton stopped the Bosnian war, which split the country along ethnic boundaries. Bosnia consists of two entities. It is the federation where Bosnia (Bosnian Muslims) shares power with the Croatians, and the republika srpska, ruled by Serbia. Above it sits the “high representatives” of the central government with almost no teeth and foreign countries. He is given extensive authority to carry out trades and maintain peace.
Dodik, who has been split from Bosnia for years and threatened to “reunite” with Serbia, was convicted in February of violating the orders of current high representative Christian Schmidt. Last week, the Court of Appeals supported his one-year prison sentence and six-year ban on office. Dodik avoided prison by paying a fine, but Bosnian election commission chose on Wednesday to apply a law that automatically removes staff if sentenced to prison for more than six months.
After 20 years of rage against Bosnia’s state-level institutions and encouraged by the cast of his illegal allies and the lack of pushbacks from the European Union, many in Bosnia were surprised that the authorities moved so quickly to implement the court’s decision.
“Since 2006, Dodik has tried his best to weaken Bosnian facilities and run the nation from within,” Arminka Helic, who fled the war in the 1990s and now sits in the British House of Representatives, told CNN. “I didn’t think he expected that after his threat and all the noise, anyone would question his position.”
The question now is whether Dodik will go quietly or fight, she said.
For now, the latter appears to be more likely. Dodik threatened to prevent new elections from being forced to take place when necessary, and looked to allies in Belgrade, Moscow and Budapest for assistance.
“Sudding is not an option,” Dodik said.
Moscow has long been aiming to promote trouble in the Balkans, but has warned that the region could swirl “out of control.” The Bosnian embassy warned that the country was making “historic mistakes.”
“Has its reputation as a ‘European powder keg’ been forgotten? ” asked.
When Dodik first came to power, Western diplomats were pleased. After Bloodbath in the 1990s, he seemed to tell the age of stability. For Madeleine Albright, then Secretary of State, Dodique was a “breath of fresh air.”
However, since then, Dodik has revived himself as an unrepentant nationalist, denying 8,000 Bosniak genocide in Srebrenica in 1995, denying the war’s most notorious massacre and often meeting Putin in Moscow.
For many years, Dodik has opposed the structure of the Dayton agreement, threatening that Bosnian institutions will operate in his organization and ultimately divide Srpska from other regions.
He created the nemesis of Christian Schmidt, a current high-ranking German official and former government pastor, under then Chancellor Angela Merkel. Dodik cast Schmidt as Albatros around Srpska’s neck, claiming that his power is trampling on the will of Serb voters.
Since Dodik’s belief, his European allies have begun to take his cause. Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban has dismissed the lawsuit against Dodik as an attempt by senior officials born by foreigners “to eliminate him for opposing the globalist elite agenda.”
Serbian foreign minister Marco Julich also told Dodik that he was using “political witch hunts” to block “people’s will” using “undemocratic methods.”
Focusing his complaints about Schmidt is a “sensible strategy,” Adnan Sin, a senior analyst at the European Council of Foreign Relations, told CNN.
Even Bosnian institutional advocates find it difficult to justify the power granted to Schmidt. Highly paid representatives are appointed by a council of several Western countries and are awarded the authority to impose invalidation laws, appoint and appoint them. Paddy Ashdown, a former British Parliament who previously served as a high representative, said the role gave him the “power to create a liberal blush.”
“Now, the rest of Europe doesn’t have that power, at least in the democratic part. It’s simply to wake up, visit his website, and dismiss new laws, decisions, people,” Gray said.
In pursuit of more heavyweight diplomatic support, Dodik began to intensify his overture to the Trump administration. He claims he is exposed to “law” by unelected bureaucrats, like the US president.
Dodik has argued that European authorities are ignoring the will of people when he tries to take him out of office, reflecting criticism made by Vice President JD Vance in his infamous Munich speech earlier this year.
He also tried to portray himself as a Christian leader who had been victimized in the majority of Muslim countries, Helic said.
“He is not only experiencing the same trials and tribulations that President Trump has experienced, but he wants to not only stand there as the only person defending the rule of law and Christianity from confusion, but also as the soul of a relative sitting in a small presence on the Balkans,” she said.
The election authorities’ decision against Dodik will take effect once the appeal period expires. An early election will then be called within 90 days.
However, there remains confusion as to who will execute the decision if Dodik refuses to stop or blocks a new election. The EU expanded its peacekeeping forces within the country in March, but these troops did not move to detain Dodik, even if warrants were active for arrests earlier this year.
Jasmine Mujanovic, a senior fellow at the New Line Institute, told CNN that Bosnia and European authorities will face “major tests” if Dodik attempts to stay in the post.
“There’s really no business talking about competing with (Chinese leaders) Xi Jinping or Vladimir Putin or anyone else, at least from the EU perspective,” he said.
Dodik threatened to ignore the verdict, but Mujanovic said much of his support base had withered. For months, Republika Srpska had “elite exile” as political opposition began to imagine a “post-dodik future.”
Nebosha Vukanovic, founder of the Entity’s opposition, said that only a complete removal from Dodik’s office could end the “constant crisis” in Bosnian politics, and ultimately “free the institutions prosecuting those responsible for crime and corruption.” Dodik is under US sanctions to cultivate a “corrupted sponsorship network.”
However, while some at Srpska may be beginning to imagine a political life without Dodik, Helic has warned that he can take reckless actions, such as attempting to completely separate himself from Bosnia.
“A hopeless man might decide to do something that will make the country even more unstable,” she said.
