Milorad Dodik has been legally stripped of his role as president of Bosnia & Herzegovina’s Serb-majority entity, Republika Srpska, but he is continuing to operate as if still in power. 

Last week, Dodik announced he had nominated Savo Minić, a lawyer and former agriculture minister, to head a new Republika Srpska government. In a post on X, he praised Minić as “a patriot loyal to Republika Srpska” and “a man who brings people together”. The nominee, in turn, declared he expected to secure confirmation in parliament swiftly and promised to form his cabinet speedily. 

The move is extraordinary, given that Bosnia’s state court on August 1 sentenced Dodik to a year in prison and imposed a six-year ban from holding office for defying rulings by Christian Schmidt, the international high representative charged with overseeing the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement.

This was followed six days later by a announcement from Bosnia’s Central Election Commission (CEC) that it had formally removed Dodik from his post as president of the country’s Serb entity. While Dodik later converted the prison sentence into a fine of BAM36,500 (€18,700) under Bosnian law, the ban on public office remains in place.

CEC head Irena Hadziabdic subsequently announced that a snap presidential election in Republika Srpska will be held on November 23. Before then, Republika Srpska plans to hold a referendum — not sanctioned by the central authorities — asking citizens if they reject the state court ruling that barred Dodik from holding office. 

In the meantime, the veteran nationalist, who has long sought to weaken Bosnia’s central institutions and elevate the autonomy of Republika Srpska, has refused to step aside. Instead, he is attempting to show it is business as usual in Republika Srpska, combining political defiance with carefully staged visits to local companies, industrial zones and hospitals. 

“Srpska is financially and economically stable and is certainly capable of supporting the economy and the real sector,” he wrote in one recent social media post after touring a furniture producer in Aleksandrovac’s industrial zone.

The institutional crisis deepened further on August 22, when the Republika Srpska National Assembly voted to hold a referendum in October challenging the state court’s ruling. In an official statement from the entity’s parliament, lawmakers denounced the decision against Dodik as “political violence against the legal system”, imposed by what they called an “illegally installed” international envoy. “Every form of struggle for freedom is legitimate, and we have always known and done exactly that: we have defended and will defend our rights,” the statement said.

Minić, meanwhile, has set out an ambitious programme despite the contested nature of his appointment. In consultations with coalition parties, he pledged to introduce a child savings fund and alimony fund, reform public administration, and hold government sessions in local communities across the entity. “Regardless of the fact that the term of this government is limited to one year, I am convinced that citizens will definitely feel the positive energy and ideas that we will implement,” he said. His government is expected by endorsed by the Republika Srpska parliament on September 2. 

Dodik himself has laid down priorities for the incoming administration, including a significant rise in the minimum wage, starting next year. He also called for tighter restrictions on migrant labour, claiming that “European economies have been broken by admitting cheap labour from abroad”.

More ominously, he told the BBC in an interview at the end of August that it would be “logical” for Bosnian Serbs to demand a separate state. 

"Bosnia and Herzegovina is meaningless. After all the international operations, pressures, tricks and deceptions, it is a defective country. It does not deserve the right to exist and it is logical that the Serbian people demand their right to the status of an independent state," Dodik told the BBC.

He also vowed to seek the support of Russian President Vladimir Putin for Republika Srpska’s secession from Bosnia, admitting that in past discussions Putin had resisted appeals to endorse the breakup of the country. 

For now, despite dissenting voices from the opposition, Dodik retains the loyalty of Republika Srpska institutions and coalition partners, ensuring that his grip on power continues in practice, if not in law. But his open defiance of Bosnia’s judiciary and the international overseer risks dragging the country into a renewed confrontation between entity and state authorities, are likely to further destabilise an already fragile political settlement.

As Dodik tours factories and hospitals promising stability, the question for Bosnia’s Serb entity is whether it can afford to indulge his parallel reality.