After Bosnian electoral watchdog CIK (Central Electoral Commission) removed Dodik from office as the President of the Serbian-dominated entity Republika Srpska (RS), it all went loose.
It did not take long for Dodik to resort to dramatic populist rhetoric, as he told local media that the public should be offered a referendum, with the question deciding whether RS citizens accept Dodik’s sentence of a year in jail and a six-year-long ban in national politics.
The Republika Srpska leader also insisted that “The mandate was given to me by the people”, then “I will listen to them in the referendum”.
Dodik did not hold back in the press conference with journalists. He emphasized that he “would not kneel nor crawl, but will fight”.
His vision of the future of RS has been criticised for being deeply Islamophobic. Shortly after he said the following: “Good times are coming for RS, I will break the illusion of any cooperation with Muslims, who are pathological enemies of the Serbian people”.
For a region where Serbs mercilessly killed over 8,000 Bosniaks thirty years ago over their faith, it is more than a destabilizing comment.
Dodik would not stop there. Vice-President of the RS region, Ćamil Duraković, a representative of the Bosniak community in the region, described on Twitter how Dodik had tried to harass him and his colleagues that same day. Dodik retaliated, with Duraković being asked to return his official vehicle, before his apartment contract was terminated by the Cabinet of the President.
This had been done without any prior warning, on the same day as CIK’s decision. This is a move is a sign to the courts that Dodik is not afriad to disregard the rule of law further in his quest to intimidate the Bosniak community. As Duraković wrote: “Only time can tell how far Dodik is willing to go”.
Dodik’s intimidation attempts did not go unnoticed. President of the Bosniak-Croat, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH), declared public support on Facebook for Duraković: “He will not be left without support and ensuring basic conditions for work and performing the duties to which he was elected in accordance with the Law.”
On the other hand, Serbian Interior Minister wrote to Serbian press agency SRNA that “If today they can remove a president elected in democratic elections, tomorrow they could abolish Republika Srpska itself. The Serb people will not remain silent in the face of injustice.”
Dodik also received support from Bosnian Serb politician Rod Blagojević, former governors of Illinois in the U.S. He likened Dodik’s situation with Donald Trump’s, claiming it “is a true aggression, an abuse of the law against political opponents […] similar tactics that were used against Trump are now seen in the rest of the world”.
He did not hold back when it came to America’s role: “The U.S. are not the police of the world, but they have a big outreach. It is in America’s interest to support Bolsonaro and Dodik, and to work against the aggression while they are liked by the people”.
It is all but over in Bosnia and Herzegovina. While CIK have removed Dodik from office as the RS President, it will take a little bit more to dethrone him as he continues to preside over the entity, no matter how illegal it is on paper. How law enforcement acts in response to his increasingly illegal and aggressive actions shall be the true determinant of RS’ future.
Featured image via Alexandros Michailidis / Shutterstock.
