By Neira Sabanovic, Free University of Brussels.
This article was first published on the French website Le Rubicon on the 11th of July 2025. Link to the original article in French: Milorad Dodik face à la justice : la Bosnie-Herzégovine dans l’impasse – Le Rubicon.
The conviction of Milorad Dodik, president of the Serb entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Republika Srpska (RS), on February 26, 2025, has plunged the country into one of the most severe political crises since the end of the war in 1995. He was found guilty of disregarding rulings from the Constitutional Court and decisions of the international High Representative. Following the verdict, arrest warrants were also issued for several senior RS officials, including Dodik himself, Radovan Višković (Prime Minister of RS), and Nenad Stevandić (Speaker of the RS National Assembly). For the first time in the country’s history, judicial action has triggered a direct institutional confrontation between the Serb entity and the central state, raising serious questions about the authority of the judiciary within Republika Srpska. Although Bosnia and Herzegovina has endured recurring political crises over the past three decades, it is important to distinguish these cycles of instability from the current unprecedented crisis, which Dodik has fueled through the adoption of controversial laws directly threatening the country’s territorial integrity.
Milorad Dodik, a divisive political figure in a deeply complex system
Bosnia and Herzegovina is defined by one of the most intricate institutional systems in the world, enshrined in Annex 4 of the Dayton Peace Accords that ended the 1992–1995 war. The state structure rests on a consociational model of ethnic federalism, characterized by multiple territorial and institutional divisions in which ethnic identities are formally embedded into the very fabric of the country. The state is effectively split into two territorial entities whose boundaries—the Inter-Entity Boundary Line (IEBL)—reflect wartime territorial gains: the Serb entity, more commonly known as Republika Srpska, and the Bosniak-Croat entity, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH), alongside a “multiethnic” district, Brčko. While this complex system was originally designed to reduce the risk of renewed conflict, in practice it has perpetuated ethnic divisions, embedding them into governance and public administration.
The country is led by a tripartite presidency, composed of one representative from each of the three constituent peoples. Alongside the central parliament, each entity has its own parliamentary assembly with specific competencies. One of the most visible consequences of this system has been the dominance of ethnonationalist parties since the first postwar parliamentary elections in 1996. However, electoral fraud has tainted several elections, helping these parties to maintain power. The Central Election Commission (Centralna Izborna Komisija – CIK) and its members, for instance, came under political pressure and verbal attacks from Dodik after the cancelation in 2021 of local election results in Srebrenica and Doboj due to fraud. Such manipulation continues to reinforce the grip of nationalist parties over the political scene, creating the impression that citizens endlessly re-elect the same leaders.
In the absence of ideological opposition within RS, all political parties in the entity are characterized by nationalist agendas defending the national interests of the country’s Serbs. A similar situation exists in the FBiH, where nationalist parties representing Bosniak and Croat interests also generally secure a large share of the vote, even though so-called “civic” parties, and therefore non-nationalist, have managed to gain ground in that entity. This phenomenon reflects a growing desire among certain segments of the population to break free from the heavy and complex institutional framework in favor of a state without territorial entities—one that could allow the country to overcome political paralysis. It is also crucial to highlight the role of the “Ostali” (“others”), namely citizens who do not identify with the country’s three constituent communities. Although often marginalized in political discourse, they play a significant role in promoting an inclusive political identity and challenging the current institutional system. In a society like Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the institutional framework has entrenched conflicts over interethnic relations, the emergence of new political cleavages remains highly complex.
This political and institutional structure helps explain the current political crisis facing the country, and in particular the system in which Milorad Dodik operates. Since 2006, Dodik has established himself as the dominant figure on the Serb political scene in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Over time, he has imposed an increasingly radical secessionist rhetoric in the public sphere, aimed at declaring the independence of the Serb entity and thereby endangering the very existence of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This shift marked a sharp break from the early days of his political career. Elected to parliament in 1996 with strong backing from the international community—especially the United States—Dodik was then perceived as a liberal political figure, in stark contrast with the nationalist leaders of the 1992–1995 war. At the time, Dodik openly acknowledged the responsibility of the Republika Srpska Army in the genocide of Bosniak Muslims in Srebrenica in July 1995. Following Montenegro’s declaration of independence in 2006, however, his discourse shifted drastically, adopting an increasingly virulent Serbian nationalist rhetoric centered on questioning the unity of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Dodik became Prime Minister of RS after the 2006 general elections, president of the Serb entity in 2010, and a member of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s tripartite presidency in 2018. Throughout his political career, Dodik has steadily consolidated power by eliminating any form of political opposition within the Serb entity. His party, the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (Savez nezavisnih socijaldemokrata – SNSD), rapidly became the sole dominant force in RS, marginalizing rivals and dismantling all ideological alternatives after seizing control of most institutions at every level.
Milorad Dodik’s secessionist rhetoric in the shadow of a heavy historical legacy
Dodik’s rhetoric is built on the idea that coexistence with the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH)—composed mainly of Bosniaks (Muslims) and Croats (Catholics)—is unsustainable due to ongoing disputes over the division of powers between Banja Luka, the political and economic center of RS, and Sarajevo, the capital of the central state. He multiplies incendiary statements against central institutions, which he accuses of seeking to “destroy” Serb identity and the achievements of the Dayton Peace Accords. His discourse is also structured around a victimhood narrative, portraying Bosnia’s Serbs as the forgotten victims of the 1990s wars, while simultaneously denying or downplaying war crimes—particularly the Srebrenica genocide, recognized by international courts. This stance is accompanied by openly Islamophobic and xenophobic declarations, associating Bosniaks with Islamic radicalism and terrorism, which further deepen and sustain ethno-religious divisions. For nearly two decades, his secessionist threats have resurfaced cyclically, often around election periods, but have never culminated in a unilateral declaration of independence. This pattern is particularly revealing: it suggests that his secessionist rhetoric, which lies at the very core of his political message, is not truly intended to lead to independence, but rather to justify the continued existence of his party and its political relevance. While Dodik frames RS’s independence as a fundamental right of the Serb people, he consistently postpones the moment of secession, keeping it as a perpetual promise. Nonetheless, his statements, the laws he has introduced, and above all, the political support of allies such as Serbia and Russia, have weakened state institutions, blocked reforms, and perpetuated a climate of chronic instability in a country where governance is already extremely complicated due to its institutional structure.
The conviction of Milorad Dodik, a first in the country’s history
On February 26, 2025, a political earthquake shook Bosnia and Herzegovina. Milorad Dodik was sentenced by the State Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina to one year in prison and six years of disqualification from holding any public office. This decision came after his deliberate refusal to comply with the rulings of the international High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Christian Schmidt, in office since August 1, 2021. Schmidt had blocked two controversial laws adopted by RS authorities, laws that directly challenged the legitimacy of state institutions.
The Office of the High Representative (OHR) in Bosnia and Herzegovina is an international authority created by the Dayton Peace Accords to oversee the civilian implementation of the agreement and guarantee the country’s political stability. Appointed by the Peace Implementation Council (PIC), the High Representative wields extensive powers—especially those granted at the 1997 Bonn Conference—which allow him to impose laws, dismiss political leaders, and issue binding decisions to ensure compliance with the peace accord and preserve stability, particularly in the face of secessionist threats and the challenges of Bosnia’s multipartite governance. However, Dodik contests Schmidt’s legitimacy, a position supported by Russia and China.
This represents an unprecedented moment in the country’s post-Dayton history: never before had a leader of one of Bosnia’s entities been sentenced to prison by a national court for openly defying the institutional framework established by the Dayton Accords. The two laws adopted in Banja Luka and suspended by the High Representative were crucial: one annulled the obligation for the Serb entity to recognize and implement rulings of the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, while the other modified procedures for publishing laws in the RS Official Gazette, thereby preventing any external oversight by the central state or the High Representative. Despite the explicit ban on their implementation, Milorad Dodik and Miloš Lukić, then acting director of the Official Gazette, pushed forward with their adoption, openly defying the High Representative’s authority. While Lukić was acquitted, Dodik was found guilty. Far from softening his stance, he immediately delivered a fiery speech in Banja Luka before a crowd of supporters, denouncing what he called an “attack on RS and the Serb people.” This victimhood narrative, built on the construction of a sense of persecution, is part of Dodik’s long-standing secessionist and identity-driven discourse, as well as of Serbian nationalism in the region since the breakup of Yugoslavia, which allows him to frame any attack on him personally as an attack on the entire Serb community of Bosnia.
Towards an open rupture with state institutions?
Tensions escalated further on March 12, 2025, when three arrest warrants were issued by the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina against Milorad Dodik, Radovan Višković (Prime Minister of RS), and Nenad Stevandić (Speaker of the RS National Assembly), for failure to appear at a hearing and for violating the constitutional order. On March 17, 2025, the State Court ordered nationwide enforcement of the warrants, obliging all police forces in the country to cooperate in carrying out the arrests. In response, the RS National Assembly—dominated by SNSD deputies—passed a series of laws blocking the jurisdiction of state institutions (the courts, the Prosecutor’s Office, SIPA—the state-level police agency—and the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council) on RS territory. Although these laws were temporarily suspended by the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina on March 6, Dodik declared they would be enforced in the entity no matter what.
Dodik has not yet been arrested, partly due to the risk of escalation such an arrest could trigger, but also because he is constantly protected by RS police. Although Sarajevo requested EUFOR intervention to safeguard the country’s security, Brussels reportedly refused, fearing an aggravation of tensions and stressing that the arrest of criminals does not fall directly under EUFOR’s mandate.
Since the issuance of the warrants, several international trips by these political figures have raised questions about the RS police forces’ and border authorities’ willingness to cooperate. On March 15, Nenad Stevandić traveled to Belgrade, where he expressed support for a counter-student demonstration backed by Aleksandar Vučić, aimed at breaking the university blockade and student protests that have gripped Serbia since October 2024. A few days later, on March 24, Dodik attended the annual commemoration of the 1999 NATO bombings in Belgrade alongside Vučić, reaffirming his strong political solidarity with the Serbian president. Dodik also traveled to Israel, where he took part in an anti-antisemitism conference hosted by Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv, expressing his support for Israel by declaring that “Serbs and Jews are two peoples who faced repeated attempts at total eradication and survived them, which is why we stand together.” He later visited Moscow to meet with Vladimir Putin.
These trips, undertaken despite active arrest warrants, highlight both Dodik’s apparent impunity and his geopolitical alignment with powers challenging the Western-led international order. His ability to leave Bosnia and Herzegovina while under warrant raises serious doubts about the willingness or capacity of RS police to detain him. This problem was further illustrated on April 24, 2025, when RS police prevented Bosnian state authorities (SIPA) from serving Dodik with an arrest warrant. While in East Sarajevo (RS territory), Dodik refused to leave the RS government building. He was shielded by special anti-terrorist police units wearing uniforms marked with Serbian flags—raising questions about Belgrade’s role, although Serbia’s Interior Minister Ivica Dačić denied involvement, claiming it was a “general Serbian symbol.” Once again, Dodik managed to evade justice and SIPA forces thanks to the protection of RS police.
International reactions: between concern and support for Milorad Dodik
International reactions came swiftly. Although Dodik enjoys political backing within the European Union, notably from Viktor Orbán in Hungary, the EU expressed deep concern and emphasized the need to impose sanctions against Dodik, viewing the situation as a serious attempt to undermine the rule of law in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Several European countries, including Poland, Germany, and Austria, went further by banning him from entering their territory. In the United States, Secretary of State Marco Rubio also reacted by voicing support for the Bosnian state and stressing that “this situation cannot bring about the collapse of the country or any new conflict” and that Dodik “threatens the country’s stability and security.” Dodik also faced criticism from the United Kingdom, which reiterated its support for Bosnia and Herzegovina’s stability, unity, and NATO integration efforts. In response to the deteriorating security situation, the EU peacekeeping mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina (EUFOR Althea) was reinforced as early as March 2024. EUFOR (European Union Force) has been deployed in Bosnia and Herzegovina since December 2, 2004, under Operation Althea, to maintain peace.
Yet the picture is complicated by the explicit support Dodik continues to receive from several regional leaders. Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić remains one of his key political allies, despite officially cautious rhetoric. Vučić defended Dodik and his “struggle” for Bosnia’s Serbs, calling the verdict “a shameful ruling against Milorad Dodik—illegal, undemocratic, aimed at undermining Republika Srpska and weakening the position of the Serb people.” Still, his support is increasingly fragile as Vučić faces a period of deep unpopularity amid mounting internal crises in Serbia, marked by student mobilizations and anti-government protests denouncing his regime’s authoritarianism. This loss of legitimacy has limited his ability to act on the RS issue, making his support for Dodik more symbolic than strategic. For Vučić, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s political turmoil mainly serves as a convenient distraction from Serbia’s domestic political crisis.
Croatian President Zoran Milanović also voiced support for Dodik, calling him “the most popular politician among Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina” and denouncing the ruling as “an attempt to sideline from political life a democratically elected representative of the Serb people simply because he disobeyed an order from a colonial administrator, a German politician long retired.” While this is not the first time Milanović has defended Dodik or criticized the “dysfunction” of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s central institutions, these remarks were widely perceived as tacit encouragement of Dodik’s separatist rhetoric. Croatia itself plays a destabilizing role in Bosnia, where nationalist claims for the creation of a third Croat entity and parallel Croat political institutions remain a pressing reality.
Finally, Vladimir Putin reaffirmed his support for Dodik, describing the ruling as a “political decision.” The Russian president “condemned such moves, warning they could have negative consequences not only in RS but also across the Balkans.” This alliance strengthens Dodik’s anti-Western stance and situates him within a broader dynamic of geopolitical destabilization, in which Russia exploits Bosnia and Herzegovina’s internal divisions to weaken the influence of the EU and NATO in the region. Indeed, in the current Bosnian context, the Kremlin’s involvement raises particular concerns, especially following Dodik’s claim that “Putin stated that Russia, as a guarantor of the Dayton Accords, will advocate for the termination and cessation of international institutions’ work, especially that of the false High Representative, or as he calls him, the illegitimate representative.”
Appeal confirmation and the political consequences of Dodik’s actions
Following the initial verdict against Milorad Dodik, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s political crisis deepened further in the summer of 2025. In early August, the Court of Appeals of Bosnia and Herzegovina upheld the one-year prison sentence and six-year ban from holding public office handed down to Dodik for refusing to comply with the rulings of the Constitutional Court and the High Representative. However, under the provisions of the Bosnian Criminal Code, his prison sentence was commuted to a fine of around 36,500 convertible marks (about €18,660), which Dodik promptly paid. Paradoxically, this episode marked a de facto recognition of the authority of the state judiciary, even as Dodik continued to reject its political legitimacy.
Shortly after the ruling was upheld, the Central Election Commission (CIK) revoked Dodik’s mandate as president of Republika Srpska. Despite this institutional decision, Dodik refused to step down, claiming that his legitimacy derived from the support of the entity’s parliament rather than institutions based in Sarajevo. As a show of defiance, he engineered a government reshuffle in Republika Srpska, pushing Prime Minister Radovan Višković to resign and appointing Savo Minić as his successor. This maneuver, widely criticized as unconstitutional by the opposition since his mandate as RS president had been revoked, highlights Dodik’s determination to maintain control over the entity’s political apparatus.
At the same time, Dodik pushed the RS National Assembly to approve the organization of a referendum set for October 25, 2025. The referendum is intended to allow voters to express their views on the validity of the verdict against him, the High Representative’s decisions, and the revocation of his mandate. This initiative represents not only a direct challenge to the authority of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s central institutions, but also a symbolic reaffirmation of Dodik’s strategy of resorting to plebiscitary tools to bolster his political standing.
In response to this institutional standoff, the Central Election Commission announced the holding of early presidential elections in Republika Srpska, scheduled for November 23, 2025. Dodik and his SNSD party fiercely rejected the decision, dismissing it as illegitimate. Nonetheless, the announcement of the vote underscores the central institutions’ determination to reassert constitutional order, despite their limited capacity to enforce it against Dodik’s entrenched political networks.
Conclusion
The conviction of Milorad Dodik on February 26, 2025, marks an unprecedented turning point in Bosnia and Herzegovina’s post-Dayton history and exposes the limits of the central state’s authority, which must now resort to exceptional measures to confront an increasingly autonomous Serb entity. Dodik has succeeded in concentrating all levers of power in his own hands, silencing any form of ideological opposition by aligning rival parties with his ethnonationalist narrative.
Dodik’s progressive radicalization and his direct challenge to state and international institutions deeply undermine the balance established since the end of the war in 1995. The fact that a national court has convicted an entity leader for defying the Dayton Accords demonstrates that central state institutions still function and attempt to uphold constitutional order despite political deadlock. However, while this judicial decision is symbolically significant, it should not obscure the structural limitations of the current system. The need for such exceptional interventions to sanction such serious violations underscores the fragility of this balance in a paradoxical situation where institutions exist and are capable of acting, yet remain constantly weakened by political pressure and systematic obstruction. Although Bosnia and Herzegovina has been characterized by cyclical political crises since 1995, the country’s political stability has become extremely alarming given the point of no return reached as a result of Dodik’s actions. The consolidation of a parallel power base in Banja Luka, coupled with Dodik’s international support, raises the specter of a potential secession scenario. The international community, until now cautious, can no longer limit itself to issuing statements. It will need to fundamentally rethink its mechanisms of action to prevent institutional collapse, while also taking into account the political ambitions of leaders in Croatia and Serbia, who play a major destabilizing role in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This crisis compels a profound reexamination of the country’s governance model in a society where secessionist rhetoric stirs the fears of a population still haunted by its traumatic past, constantly revived by political figures like Milorad Dodik.
Moreover, Dodik’s political radicalization cannot be separated from the economic interests underpinning his hold on power. Control over public resources, procurement, and political and judicial institutions in RS has fostered a system of entrenched structural corruption, clientelism, and nepotism within the entity’s ruling elite, where political power has become an instrument serving opaque economic interests. Today, RS is one of the most corrupt areas in all of Southeast Europe, as documented by various international observers such as Transparency International. Furthermore, the emergency adoption of the “Foreign Agent” law on February 27, 2025—the day after the verdict—marked a major authoritarian escalation. By criminalizing civic engagement, particularly in the fields of human rights and anti-corruption activism, this law aims to neutralize civil society and consolidate Dodik’s grip on power. It forms part of a broader climate of escalating repression against political opposition, illustrated by the burning of opposition leader Nebojša Vukanović’s (Partija demokratskog progresa – PDP) car, and by explicit threats from SNSD figures such as Nenad Stevandić, who was overheard saying: “We must kill all of this [the opposition], I will kill them, I swear.” Jelena Trivić (Narodni Front – NF), another key opposition figure in RS, has likewise denounced the slide toward a one-party dictatorship. With the RS Assembly almost entirely under his control, Dodik now wields unchecked political power. Even though he announced, on April 18, a new draft constitution for RS and an independence referendum scheduled for January 9—“Republika Srpska Day”—it is crucial to stress that behind this nationalist and secessionist discourse lies, above all, Dodik and his entourage’s determination to preserve a system that ensures them impunity, wealth, and influence, even at the cost of dangerously undermining the country’s stability.
The unfolding of this case also highlights the paradox of the current crisis. Dodik formally complied with the justice system by paying his fine, while simultaneously undermining the state by refusing to recognize its political authority. His strategy rests on mobilizing institutional allies in RS, using referendums to manufacture parallel sources of legitimacy, and perpetuating a system that guarantees his personal impunity, wealth, and influence. Bosnia and Herzegovina thus finds itself at a critical crossroads in its history: it must succeed in restoring the authority of the rule of law across its territory, or risk sliding into a system of competing sovereignties—a prelude to de facto secession.
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Neira Sabanovic is a Phd student at the Free University of Brussels, linked to the Cevipol. Her work focuses on the mobilization of collective memory in the discourses of fear in the Western Balkans. More broadly, she works on the Western Balkans region, the effects of political discourses and memory policies