On 18 August, the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina rejected Milorad Dodik’s appeal against the Central Election Commission’s (CEC) decision to revoke his mandate as President of Republika Srpska (RS). Such a ruling means that Dodik’s mandate was officially terminated. However, Dodik has rejected it and announced that a referendum on his position would be organised in the RS in late September.
“I will not respect it. I respect the will of the people. You were arrogant, and you expect me to be submissive. I will not be. I am the President of Republika Srpska, and you can write whatever you want. I was elected by the people, I will not be replaced by a foreign government”, he stated on X.
According to Dodik, “there will be no election for President of the RS, one way or another”.
Dodik was convicted earlier this month for refusing to implement decisions issued in 2023 by the High Representative in BiH, Christian Schmidt. He launched multiple appeals to various courts to overturn the loss of his office, but the Court of BiH upheld the CEC decision yesterday.
According to Neven Anđelić, an assistant professor of international relations and human rights at Regent’s University London, it is no surprise that the decision made by the Court on 18 August is not in any way different from the Central Electoral Commission’s decision to remove Dodik’s mandate”.
“Simply, the institutions followed the law, and I could not see any different legal outcome. Politically, Dodik will try to organise supporters, including the opposition in the RS, to force the change, but I doubt it will make any difference”, Anđelić states for EWB.
According to the interlocutors of EWB, Dodik will try to cling to power, but it is hard to predict what the future brings for him. In this sense, it is stressed that a referendum in Republika Srpska would not be a way out of the long-standing political crisis in this entity.
A referendum would not overturn the Court ruling
Vehid Šehić, a legal expert and president of Forum of Tuzla Citizens, stresses for our portal that “calling any referendum that would negate the decisions of the Court of BiH, as well as of the decision of the Central Election Commission, is unacceptable because the referendum would be called for some other political needs”.
Tanja Topić, a political analyst and head of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation office in Banja Luka, agrees that “Milorad Dodik’s manoeuvring space for action is significantly narrowed”.
In her opinion: “There are several problems regarding a referendum – one is that it would not be legally binding, but merely a kind of survey”.
“Secondly, citizens cannot, by their opinion, abolish the final judgment – whoever thinks that it is possible, leads citizens into a dangerous illusion and destroys the already fragile rule of law”, Tanja Topić explains.
According to her, the third open question is that there is no one who could carry out such a referendum, since under political influence, the members of the Republic Electoral Commission resigned, and the new ones have not been elected.
She adds that Dodik has announced a series of referendums, and that the one with which he would crown this series would refer to “the exit of Republika Srpska from the death grip of BiH”.
“These referendums would be annulled by the Constitutional Court of BiH, whereas the number of criminal offences would increase. Dodik lost some of the public support because he tripped over a series of inconsistent political decisions – he recognized a part of the court’s ruling, as well as he took a selective approach to the decisions”, Topić remarks.
Will tensions continue to rise?
Despite the current situation, Tanja Topić says that she does not expect an escalation of tensions.
“The situation and tensions have watered down to a great extent, and it seems that Dodik and his associates are waiting for a ‘solution’ directly from Donald Trump. Dodik himself ‘admitted’ that some Americans had arrived two days before the verdict was made and that they had supposedly given the green light for it, as well as that the CEC revoked his mandate in order to prevent him from reaching Trump”, Topić points out.
Of course, Dodik’s reasoning was that the remnants of the Biden administration wanted to ruin him”, Topić concludes.
According to Vehid Šehić, it is very hard to predict what will happen next “in a country such as BiH, a country where there is still no rule of law”.
“The rule of law implies respect for the Constitution, laws, and institutions, as well as obeying their decisions. Nevertheless, Dodik had accepted the jurisdiction of both the prosecutor’s Office of BiH and the Court of BiH, the Constitutional Court of BiH, as well as of the Central Election Commission in the earlier part of the legal process. What I must also note is that neither the decisions that have been made in this specific case, nor a possible referendum, will have legal consequences for the Republika Srpska and the Serbs”, Šehić remarks.
