“We have the right to our Electoral Law. We have the right to regulate local elections, elections for the National Assembly, and the President of Republika Srpska. We do not dispute that the Central Election Commission has the right to conduct elections for deputies in the House of Representatives and for the member of the Presidency of BiH,” said the President of Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik, in an interview for banjaluka.net, commenting on the decision of the Constitutional Court of BiH to suspend the Electoral Law of Republika Srpska.
Dodik stated that the Constitutional Court is a political court and makes political decisions.
“The Central Election Commission has neither the constitutional nor any other right to conduct elections in Republika Srpska. Even according to the Electoral Law of BiH, it says that the CEC conducts elections for deputies in the House of Representatives and for the member of the Presidency of BiH and sets policies for other levels of government. This means that the elections must be democratic, transparent, fair, and honest. And then the Republika Commission conducts the elections accordingly,” said Dodik.
He added that the Constitutional Court of BiH is thus altering the Constitution and that this measure was taken to create conditions for declaring the Electoral Law unconstitutional in the future.
“Firstly, the Constitutional Court does not function according to the BiH Constitution. It stipulates that the president and vice president of the Constitutional Court should be elected from the entities, not from two foreign sides. So, they have demolished that too; they are massive destroyers of the Constitution. That’s their problem. We have decided to participate in the elections under this imposed law because we do not want to end up in a traumatic situation,” Dodik said.
He emphasized that the situation in BiH is such that Republika Srpska is waiting for the right moment, specifically Trump’s victory, to fight for a better position.
“I believe we have a good positioning in that regard. We are preparing for the time when Trump comes to power. We know that within the next three months, when Trump is inaugurated, we need to reach out to him. The story must be on his table, detailing what is happening here with the sanctions and everything else. On the other hand, Europe will look entirely different. The power and arrogance some countries display through Schmidt will surely disappear. A peace process with Russia around Ukraine will begin, creating a completely new atmosphere. This will be an atmosphere of agreement and cooperation, not exclusivity and conditions. Therefore, we have several good opportunities. That is why we said that our Electoral Law will be implemented from January 1st next year,” said Dodik.
He added that he expected the Constitutional Court of BiH to take such a stance because they are motivated by politics.
“Political decisions by the Constitutional Court are always dangerous. They always backfire on the very entity that is the Constitutional Court of BiH, which is BiH,” concluded Dodik.
In the interview with banjaluka.net, Dodik also commented on relations with partners at the BiH level after the budget was adopted. He said that the SNSD acts in such a way as not to allow systemic laws that change the character of BiH.
“The budget is an annual document. With or without it, there are ways to finance it. Therefore, we will allow these short-term matters. But systemic matters related to the constitutional arrangement, we cannot agree on. In Sarajevo, there is a structure that wants to exploit the substantial international presence, even the European path, to grab more centralization of BiH,” said Dodik.
He emphasized that Republika Srpska primarily supports the European path and has contributed to it by voting for several laws to gain negotiating status.
“But we are the ones who also say that it is impossible for the country to be a negotiator while having a fake high representative. Unlike Sarajevo, which says that a high representative is needed. We don’t see ourselves in that. We want to sit down and say – people, we want to stay in BiH, but you cannot expect to dismantle Republika Srpska. Let’s make something functional,” Dodik said.
He asked why it is a problem for Republika Srpska to be visible in the European process. He mentioned that many complex European countries operate in this way, citing Belgium as an example, where, for meetings about agriculture, for instance, it is not the federal minister but a regional minister who attends.
“Why can’t we agree on that? And why do you want to have a minister there and push for centralization? That’s the whole story. This talk of conflict, war, it’s absolutely pointless to comment on. There’s nothing to it. Those who threaten war blame us for being for war,” said the President of Srpska.
He pointed out that in the process of returning competencies, they saw that the world, unfortunately, once again united around Muslim goals and that any action by Republika Srpska would mean further homogenization of Muslims and the West.
“We haven’t forgotten those goals; we are leaving them, but we will return them one day when we see there are minimal chances for it. Then we said we are going for a peaceful separation, and they declared it a question of war. And we still think that we should sit down and talk. To say this is not working, it’s difficult because they won’t return to the original Dayton,” said Dodik.
He stated that the desire is to reach an agreement to avoid fighting, celebrating, or throwing stones at each other.
“What else? We went with that logic, and they declared it a reason for war. We said, okay, we’ll stop with that. But do you think it won’t come up again as an initiative? Of course, it will,” said Dodik.
