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\n When Bosnia\u2019s electoral authorities stripped Milorad Dodik of his post as president of the tiny Serb-majority statelet Republika Srpska, he did his best to appear unfazed. Instead, the divisive, genocide-denying nationalist laid down his own challenge to the institutions trying to topple him.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cWhat if I refuse?\u201d he asked.\n <\/p>\n
\n Bosnia may be about to find out.\n <\/p>\n
\n Dodik, a key Balkan ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has been in and around power in Bosnia since 2006, picking at the seams of the country\u2019s patchwork multiethnic state. That state was birthed in 1995 by the Dayton Peace Accords, which halted the violence that spread across the former Yugoslavia as it crumbled in the 1990s, driven by then-Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic\u2019s frenzied push to create a \u201cGreater Serbia.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Although Dayton halted the Bosnian War, it left the country split along ethnic lines. Bosnia comprises two entities: the Federation, where Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) share power with Croats, and the Serb-dominated Republika Srpska. Above them sits a mostly toothless central government and a foreign \u201cHigh Representative,\u201d who is bestowed with far-reaching powers to implement the deal and keep the peace.\n <\/p>\n
\n Dodik \u2013 who for years has threatened to split from Bosnia and \u201creunite\u201d with Serbia \u2013 was convicted in February of defying the orders of Christian Schmidt, the current High Representative. Last week, an appeals court upheld his one-year prison sentence and six-year ban on holding office. Although Dodik has avoided prison by paying a fine, Bosnia\u2019s electoral commission on Wednesday chose to apply the law which automatically removes an official from office if sentenced to more than six months in jail.\n <\/p>\n
\n After two decades of raging against Bosnia\u2019s state-level institutions, emboldened by his cast of illiberal allies and the lack of pushback from the European Union, many in Bosnia were stunned that authorities moved so quickly to implement the court\u2019s ruling.\n <\/p>\n
![\"Dodik](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/2025-08-01t144033z-369877477-rc2beea96b8f-rtrmadp-3-bosnia-dodik-verdict.JPG\")
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\n \u201cSince 2006, Dodik has done his damned best to weaken Bosnia\u2019s institutions and hollow out the state from the inside,\u201d Arminka Heli\u0107, who fled the wars in the 1990s and now sits in Britain\u2019s House of Lords, told CNN. \u201cI don\u2019t think he would have expected, after all his threats and all the noise, that anyone would dare question his position.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n The question now is whether Dodik goes quietly or puts up a fight, she said.\n <\/p>\n
\n For now, the latter looks more likely. Dodik has threatened to prevent new elections from taking place \u2013 if necessary, by force \u2013 and has looked to his allies in Belgrade, Moscow and Budapest for support.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cSurrender is not an option,\u201d Dodik said.\n <\/p>\n
\n Moscow, which has long looked to Dodik to foment trouble in the Balkans, has warned that the region could spiral \u201cout of control.\u201d Its embassy in Bosnia warned the country was making a \u201chistoric mistake.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cHas its reputation as the \u2018European powder keg\u2019 been forgotten\u2026?\u201d it asked.\n <\/p>\n
\n When Dodik first took power, Western diplomats were delighted. After the bloodbath of the 1990s, he seemed to herald an era of stability. For Madeleine Albright, then-US Secretary of State, Dodik was a \u201cbreath of fresh air.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n But since then, Dodik has refashioned himself as an unrepentant nationalist, denying the genocide of 8,000 Bosniaks at Srebrenica in 1995, the war\u2019s most notorious massacre, and often meeting with Putin in Moscow.\n <\/p>\n
\n For years, Dodik has raged against the structures of the Dayton agreement, making it harder for Bosnian institutions to operate in his entity and threatening, ultimately, to split Srpska from the rest of the country.\n <\/p>\n
![\"Leaders](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/gettyimages-635957457.jpg\")
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\n He has made a nemesis of Christian Schmidt, the current High Representative and a former government minister in Germany under then-Chancellor Angela Merkel. Dodik casts Schmidt as an albatross around Srpska\u2019s neck, claiming his powers trample on the will of Serb voters.\n <\/p>\n
\n Since Dodik\u2019s conviction, his European allies have begun to take up his cause. Viktor Orb\u00e1n, Hungary\u2019s prime minister, dismissed the case against Dodik as an attempt by the foreign-installed High Representative \u201cto remove him for opposing their globalist elite agenda.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Marko Djuri\u0107, Serbia\u2019s foreign minister, also said Schmidt was subjecting Dodik to \u201ca political witch hunt,\u201d using \u201cundemocratic methods\u201d to thwart \u201cthe will of the people.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Focusing his complaints against Schmidt is a \u201csmart strategy,\u201d Adnan \u0106erimagi\u0107, a senior analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told CNN.\n <\/p>\n
\n Even defenders of Bosnia\u2019s institutions find it hard to justify the powers granted to Schmidt. High Representatives are appointed by a council comprising several Western nations and bestowed with the power to impose annul laws as well as appoint and remove officials. Paddy Ashdown, a former British MP who previously served as High Representative, said the role gave him \u201cpowers that ought to make any liberal blush.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cNo other person in Europe today, at least in the democratic part, has that power: simply to wake up, access his website, and post new laws, decisions and dismiss people,\u201d said \u0106erimagi\u0107.\n <\/p>\n
\n Seeking more heavyweight diplomatic support, Dodik has begun to ramp up his overtures to the Trump administration, claiming that he, like the US president, has been subjected to \u201clawfare\u201d by an unelected bureaucrat.\n <\/p>\n
\n Echoing criticisms made by Vice President JD Vance in his infamous Munich speech earlier this year, Dodik has claimed that, in attempting to remove him from office, European authorities are ignoring the will of the people.\n <\/p>\n
\n He has also attempted to paint himself as a victimized Christian leader in a Muslim-majority country, said Heli\u0107.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cHe wants to paint himself as a kindred soul sitting out there in a little entity in the Balkans, who is not only going through the same trials and tribulations that President Trump went through, but is also standing there as the sole figure defending the rule of law and Christianity from chaos,\u201d she said.\n <\/p>\n
\n The electoral authorities\u2019 decision against Dodik will take effect once an appeals period expires. Early elections will then be called within 90 days.\n <\/p>\n
\n But confusion remains over who will enforce the decision if Dodik refuses to stand down, or obstructs the new elections. Although the EU expanded its peacekeeping force in the country in March, those troops did not move to detain Dodik even when a warrant was active for his arrest earlier this year.\n <\/p>\n
![\"Dodik](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/2024-01-08t162818z-86391352-rc2od5aloxlb-rtrmadp-3-bosnia-serbs-dodik.jpg\")
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\n Jasmin Mujanovi\u0107, a senior fellow at New Lines Institute, told CNN that Bosnian and European authorities will face a \u201cmajor test\u201d if Dodik attempts to stay in post.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cIf you can\u2019t deal with the likes of Milorad Dodik, at least from the EU\u2019s perspective, you really have no business talking about competing with the likes of (Chinese leader) Xi Jinping or Vladimir Putin or whoever else,\u201d he said.\n <\/p>\n
\n Although Dodik has threatened to defy the ruling, Mujanovi\u0107 said much of his support base in the entity has withered away. For months, there has been \u201celite defection\u201d in Republika Srpska, as the political opposition begins to imagine a \u201cpost-Dodik future.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Neboj\u0161a Vukanovi\u0107, founder of an opposition party in the entity, said only Dodik\u2019s total removal from office could end the \u201cconstant crisis\u201d in Bosnian politics, and would finally \u201cfree the institutions to prosecute those responsible for crime and corruption.\u201d Dodik is under US sanctions for cultivating a \u201ccorrupt patronage network.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n But although some in Srpska may be beginning to imagine political life without Dodik, Heli\u0107 warned he could take reckless actions \u2013 such as attempting full secession from Bosnia \u2013 if he feels he has nothing to lose.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cA desperate man might decide to do something that would further destabilize the country,\u201d she said.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Facebook Tweet Email Link When Bosnia\u2019s electoral authorities stripped Milorad Dodik of his post as president of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":329780,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7655],"tags":[332],"class_list":{"0":"post-329779","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-russia","8":"tag-russia"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114997210937206448","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329779\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/329780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}