He was once considered a reformer who wanted to lead Republika Srpska into Europe. Today, Milorad Dodik is on the US blacklist and is being prosecuted by the Bosnian prosecutor’s office.
Milorad Dodik was born in 1959 to a farming family near the city of Banja Luka in the northwest of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was then part of socialist Yugoslavia. He studied political science in the then Yugoslav capital, Belgrade, and then worked in a leading position in the administration of his municipality until 1990. In the first multi-party elections on the eve of the dissolution of Yugoslavia in 1990/91, Dodik was elected a deputy to the Parliament of Bosnia and Herzegovina. There he advocated for the coexistence of different ethnic groups and a common European future for Bosnia and Herzegovina. This gave him a reputation as a traitor among nationalist Serbs.
At the same time, Dodik founded a furniture factory, but it soon failed. Political opponents still accuse him of smuggling cigarettes and fuel during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992 to 1995. These accusations were never proven. After the Dayton Peace Agreement, which ended the war, in late December 1995, Dodik founded his own party, which he called the Independent Social Democrats (SNSD). Initially, he distinguished himself as a reformer in the Serb-dominated part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the “Republika Srpska” (RS).
OPPONENTS OF NATIONALISTS
At the time, Dodik openly rejected the nationalist policies of the Serbian Democratic Party (SDS), which had previously governed RS. He advocated a multiethnic Bosnia and publicly called for the arrest of politicians such as the wartime RS president, Radovan Karadzic, and the Serbian military commander, General Ratko Mladic. Both were indicted for serious war crimes and later convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague. This stance was very rare among Serbian politicians at the time. “Dodik was bold and pragmatic, which made him popular, especially with the Americans,” says Tanja Topic, a political observer from Banja Luka, the current capital of RS. “But today he celebrates the same war criminals as national heroes and portrays BiH as an unnatural creature of the international community.”
ONE STATE – TWO “ENTITIES”
Bosnia and Herzegovina, established by the Dayton Peace Accords, with a population of around 3.2 million, is a decentralized state. It essentially consists of two units, the so-called entities: the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is mainly populated by Bosniak Muslims and Bosnian Croats, and the Republika Srpska, which is mainly inhabited by Bosnian Serbs. In addition to the three-member State Presidency, the state has a bicameral Parliament. The two entities each have their own parliaments and presidents. Since 1996, political events in Bosnia have been monitored by the High Representative (HR) as a representative of the international community, who can also exercise some state power. For example, the HR can dismiss politicians who violate the Dayton Peace Agreement. Since August 2021, the HR is the German CSU politician Christian Schmidt.
With massive support from the West, Dodik became prime minister of Republika Srpska in 1998. He also received support from neighboring Serbia under President Slobodan Milosevic. US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright praised Dodik at the time as “a pure spirit” and a partner for stability and the implementation of the Dayton Agreement. “He wisely led RS through difficult times and was committed to economic development,” Albright said. She also highlighted Dodik’s role in reconciliation and progress in BiH.
FROM THE LOVED ONE OF ALL, TO THE DISTRIBUTOR
“The years 1997/98 to 2007 were marked by a major international intervention in Bosnia,” explains journalist Zarko Marković from Banja Luka. “Dodik was crazy enough to accept the post of prime minister in this chaos.” This kind of madness mixed with a great deal of pragmatism characterizes his rule to this day.
But how did the world-respected politician become the most feared politician in the Western Balkans?
Dodik served as Prime Minister of Republika Srpska from 1998 to 2001. He held the post again from 2006 to 2010. He then became President of RS. But after winning absolute power in the elections, he changed course and began campaigning for the independence of Republika Srpska. There is also frequent talk of a referendum that would provide him with the necessary legitimacy.
THE SOLE RULER
For the first time, he held a referendum on the independence of Republika Srpska from Bosnia in January 2016 – even though the responsible Constitutional Court in Sarajevo had previously declared the vote illegal. The result was not legally binding, but it cemented authority in “his” entity and demonstrated his ability to adapt to political circumstances. Dodik created a network of political allies that allowed him to dominate RS institutions, crush the opposition and build an image for himself as the undisputed leader of Bosnian Serbs. In 2018 he became a member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and then again president of Republika Srpska in 2022.
BREAKDOWN AND NATIONALISM
Since then, Dodik has pursued a secessionist policy and has sought the unification of Republika Srpska with neighboring Serbia. This led, among other things, to sanctions against him by the US and the UK. At the same time, he strengthened RS’s relations with states with governments critical of the EU such as Hungary, Serbia, and Russia, thus losing the support of the European Union. The open clash with the central government of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the international community took place in 2023.
At that time, Dodik signed two laws stipulating that the decisions of the Constitutional Court of BiH and High Representative Christian Schmidt would not be respected in Republika Srpska. For this, he was sentenced to one year in prison and a six-year ban on political activity by the Federal Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina on February 26, 2025. But the verdict is not yet final. (DW)
