Bosnia’s Serb leader Milorad Dodik signed a controversial piece of legislation into law on Friday, according to his office, setting up a potential showdown with the country’s international envoy.
The signing of the first of two controversial laws was the latest in a series of inflammatory political moves engineered by Dodik, who has long campaigned for secession from Bosnia.
The Kremlin ally — currently under US sanctions — is president of Bosnia’s Serb entity, known as Republika Srpska (RS).
The law signed by Dodik on Friday effectively allows for RS to bypass or ignore decisions made by Bosnia’s international envoy.
The international envoy oversees the civilian aspects of the peace deal that ended Bosnia’s 1992-1995 war, and has the power to sack elected officials and impose laws.
After inking the bill, Dodik lashed out at Christian Schmidt — the current envoy — in a letter sent to his office.
“The high representative in Bosnia does not exist and it is disgusting and illegal to misrepresent yourself,” wrote Dodik.
Another piece of legislation that suspends RS’s recognition of rulings made by the Bosnia constitutional court is waiting to be signed by Dodik, after the RS parliament approved the measure last month.
– ‘Ready to sacrifice’ –
The laws have been widely condemned in the West, with the United States, United Kingdom and European Union saying the moves threaten a landmark peace agreement that ended the civil war in Bosnia in 1995.
Dodik’s signing of the first bill into law comes just days after Schmidt struck down the controversial moves by passing an executive order that deems them illegal and prevents their implementation.
Schmidt made the ruling last weekend when he also passed a new measure that would allow Bosnia’s judiciary to prosecute politicians who oppose his orders and those of the Constitutional Court — with punishments running up to five years’ imprisonment.
Dodik, however, has vowed to oppose Schmidt.
“I am ready to sacrifice and I am ready to go to the end because I have no choice,” Dodik said earlier this week.
Bosnia has been governed by a dysfunctional administrative system created by the Dayton Agreement that succeeded in ending the conflict in the 1990s, but largely failed in providing a framework for the country’s political development.
In accordance with the agreement, Bosnia has been divided into two bodies — a Muslim-Croat federation and Republika Srpska. The two entities are connected by a weak central government.
Dodik has held enormous sway over Bosnia’s Serb entity for years, and has frequently stoked ethnic tensions and threatened to secede.
