In a tiny European statelet, a Putin ally is running out of road

CNN

4 days ago

FacebookTweetLink When Bosnia's 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.
'What if I refuse?' he asked.
Bosnia may be about to find out.
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's 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's frenzied push to create a 'Greater Serbia.'
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 'High Representative,' who is bestowed with far-reaching powers to implement the deal and keep the peace.
Dodik – who for years has threatened to split from Bosnia and 'reunite' with Serbia – 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's 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.
After two decades of raging against Bosnia's 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's ruling.
'Since 2006, Dodik has done his damned best to weaken Bosnia's institutions and hollow out the state from the inside,' Arminka Helić, who fled the wars in the 1990s and now sits in Britain's House of Lords, told CNN. 'I don't think he would have expected, after all his threats and all the noise, that anyone would dare question his position.'
The question now is whether Dodik goes quietly or puts up a fight, she said.
For now, the latter looks more likely. Dodik has threatened to prevent new elections from taking place – if necessary, by force – and has looked to his allies in Belgrade, Moscow and Budapest for support.
'Surrender is not an option,' Dodik said.
Moscow, which has long looked to Dodik to foment trouble in the Balkans, has warned that the region could spiral 'out of control.' Its embassy in Bosnia warned the country was making a 'historic mistake.'
'Has its reputation as the 'European powder keg' been forgotten…?' it asked.
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 'breath of fresh air.'
But since then, Dodik has refashioned himself as an unrepentant nationalist, denying the genocide of 8,000 Bosniaks at Srebrenica in 1995, the war's most notorious massacre, and often meeting with Putin in Moscow.
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.
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's neck, claiming his powers trample on the will of Serb voters.
Since Dodik's conviction, his European allies have begun to take up his cause. Viktor Orbán, Hungary's prime minister, dismissed the case against Dodik as an attempt by the foreign-installed High Representative 'to remove him for opposing their globalist elite agenda.'
Marko Djurić, Serbia's foreign minister, also said Schmidt was subjecting Dodik to 'a political witch hunt,' using 'undemocratic methods' to thwart 'the will of the people.'
Focusing his complaints against Schmidt is a 'smart strategy,' Adnan Ćerimagić, a senior analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told CNN.
Even defenders of Bosnia's 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 'powers that ought to make any liberal blush.'
'No 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,' said Ćerimagić.
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 'lawfare' by an unelected bureaucrat.
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.
He has also attempted to paint himself as a victimized Christian leader in a Muslim-majority country, said Helić.
'He 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,' she said.
The electoral authorities' decision against Dodik will take effect once an appeals period expires. Early elections will then be called within 90 days.
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.
Jasmin Mujanović, a senior fellow at New Lines Institute, told CNN that Bosnian and European authorities will face a 'major test' if Dodik attempts to stay in post.
'If you can't deal with the likes of Milorad Dodik, at least from the EU's perspective, you really have no business talking about competing with the likes of (Chinese leader) Xi Jinping or Vladimir Putin or whoever else,' he said.
Although Dodik has threatened to defy the ruling, Mujanović said much of his support base in the entity has withered away. For months, there has been 'elite defection' in Republika Srpska, as the political opposition begins to imagine a 'post-Dodik future.'
Nebojša Vukanović, founder of an opposition party in the entity, said only Dodik's total removal from office could end the 'constant crisis' in Bosnian politics, and would finally 'free the institutions to prosecute those responsible for crime and corruption.' Dodik is under US sanctions for cultivating a 'corrupt patronage network.'
But although some in Srpska may be beginning to imagine political life without Dodik, Helić warned he could take reckless actions – such as attempting full secession from Bosnia – if he feels he has nothing to lose.
'A desperate man might decide to do something that would further destabilize the country,' she said.