Lawmakers in Bosnia’s Serb-dominated region of Republika Srpska voted late on August 22 to call a referendum rejecting a state court ruling that barred nationalist leader Milorad Dodik from holding office, escalating the standoff between the entity and Bosnia’s central institutions.

The entity’s National Assembly approved the decision after a late-night session in which deputies from Dodik’s ruling Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) and its allies backed a proposal to ask voters whether they accept the verdict of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The referendum will be held on October 25, just days before elections to choose a new president of Republika Srpska are scheduled.

The vote follows the state court’s August 1 ruling sentencing Dodik to a year in prison and imposing a six-year ban on serving as president of Republika Srpska for defying decisions of Christian Schmidt, the international high representative overseeing Bosnia’s 1995 peace accord. The Central Election Commission (CEC) revoked his mandate two weeks later.

Dodik used his right under Bosnian law to commute his one-year prison sentence into a fine of BAM36,500 (€19,000). However, the CEC decision is still effective. 

Dodik, who has long challenged the authority of Bosnia’s state-level institutions and foreign overseers, has refused to step down. “I will not leave office,” he told lawmakers during a lengthy speech before the vote.

Zeljka Cvijanović, the Serb member of Bosnia’s tripartite presidency and a close Dodik ally, said Sarajevo was trying to sideline him. “You want to put someone you can’t beat in the elections in prison,” she told MPs, according to a an SNSD statement. She accused state institutions of “terror against citizens” and insisted Republika Srpska “does not accept the dictates of foreigners.”

Referendum move

The referendum question asks: “Do you accept the decisions of the unelected foreigner Christian Schmidt and the rulings of the unconstitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina issued against the President of Republika Srpska, as well as the decision of the Central Election Commission to strip the President of Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik, of his mandate?”

50 MPs voted in favour of the move, with no votes against or abstentions, though opposition parties – including the Party of Democratic Progress, the Serb Democratic Party and Narodni Front – boycotted the decision, a parliament report said.

The assembly also passed amendments to the Law on Referendum and Citizens’ Initiative and formally rejected the possibility of early presidential elections. It demanded that Republika Srpska’s institutions refrain from cooperating with preparations for any new vote.

In parallel, lawmakers accepted the resignation of Prime Minister Radovan Višković and his cabinet, who stepped down on August 18 after six years in office. A new government cannot be appointed until a president is chosen, prolonging political uncertainty.

Dodik struck a defiant tone on social media. “In every step, I see the strength and potential of the Republic of Srpska. When the people believe – there is no force that can break them. Srpska will triumph,” he wrote on X.

The following morning, he attacked the UK ambassador to Bosnia, accusing London of hypocrisy for opposing referendums in Republika Srpska while having allowed the Brexit and Scottish independence votes. “Just because you suffer from a colonial power complex does not mean that the Republic of Srpska agrees to be a colony,” Dodik wrote.

But opposition figures dismissed the referendum as a distraction. “This government has never allowed referendums to change the way decisions are made,” Maja Dragojević Stojić, an opposition MP, wrote on Facebook. She accused Dodik’s party of bankrupting public finances and neglecting healthcare and energy while promoting a “cult of personality.”

“Republika Srpska is not at the end – you are,” she wrote. “Your time has expired.”

Dodik, in power in various roles for nearly two decades, has frequently clashed with Bosnia’s central authorities and threatened secession of Republika Srpska. His confrontations with Schmidt, Western ambassadors and international institutions have deepened fears of instability in a country still scarred by the 1992-95 war. The Republika Srpska parliament’s decision to back the planned referendum — despite this being outside its jurisdiction — is unlikely to alter Dodik’s legal status or force Sarajevo to reverse its decisions but will only deepen the rift between Bosnia’s Serb entity and Bosnia’s central authorities.