How Milorad Dodik politically survives what is currently happening in Bosnia, in the spring he will be able to slaughter an ox and celebrate his jubilee - 40 years on the political scene of that country. This will make him the European record holder. Namely, it is difficult to find a similar case, that someone was in a public position in communism, and managed to maintain himself politically more than well for the last four decades. If we add to that that Dodik is from a country where a devastating war raged for four years, then his success gains additional weight (and this is not a metaphor aimed at the dimensions of our hero).
But before roasting the ox and honoring the people, Dodik will have to face the consequences of the decision of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which sentenced him to prison for one year and a ban on political activity for six years. Although there was a real political and media uproar around this verdict announced at the beginning of August, especially in Serbia, as the days go by the situation calms down. And Dodik himself - after a series of public appearances in which he punched the hero's chest and equated his with the survival of the entity and the entire Orthodox life in BiH - retreated a bit and did what he knows best: threw himself into populism and turned the campaign in that direction.
THIS IS A BLUEBERRY
If earlier he knew how to bring orchestras to his office in Sarajevo and drink brandy to the astonishment of the Muslims who work in that institution, now he retreated to the slopes of Jahorina and went to pick blueberries with the patriarch of the SPC Porfiri.
Everyone who picks blueberries knows that "now is the time" and that you have to work hard to get to the heights where wild blueberries grow, which is usually over 1700 meters above sea level, and then comes the "robija", because superhuman patience is needed to harvest the precious fruit. Nutritionists say that blueberries are a real medicine in the body's fight against free radicals, so this picture and video, published on Milorad Dodik's account on social networks, could also be interpreted politically like this - he will not give up the fight against free radicals. Then again, maybe it's just, as the main character claims, precious time with the patriarch connecting with nature. Now, whether Dodik was more involved in pantheism or whether he was friends with Porfiry who came to personally support him and/or convey some messages, for now we can only guess. Mainly, we saw two grandfathers collecting small purple fruits in buckets and Porfirio saying at one point: "This is a blueberry".
The patriarch's sentence may also sound like a biblical message - they say "This is a man (Here is a man, Ecce homo)", but that would be too free an interpretation.
DODIK AND THE MAIDEN'S GRASS:
ADMITS-DOES NOT RECOGNIZE
The two are almost the same age - Dodik is only two years older, but his constitution and appearance make him seem younger. Perhaps one could conclude that power, political and financial, rejuvenates, corrects wrinkles and pushes the limit of longevity. And Dodik does not give in. He survived everything and now he has to fight for his survival in politics with the court of a state that he does not even publicly recognize and that he thinks the worst of, but, as those who follow Bosnian politics claim, he respects all its decisions and follows the prescribed laws.
So, after meeting with Porfiri and picking blueberries, he sent a lawyer to appeal to the Court of BiH against the decision of the Central Election Commission. And even earlier, his lawyer submitted a request to the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, requesting the suspension of the execution of the decision of the Court of Appeal. Although, we will repeat, Dodik does not publicly "recognize" all those courts in any way. Furthermore, although he has no opinion on the EU, Europe and foreigners, as he likes to say, he will take the opportunity and appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. Therefore, he will go to Strasbourg and not, for example, to Moscow, to try to make it "right for himself".
Like Vučić, his counterpart in Serbia, Dodik talks one thing on television and at rallies, and does the other behind closed doors. What we know and what he knows is that he is no longer the president of the Republika Srpska entity. It is only necessary to see how, in the next three months, the handover of power will take place formally. Of course, for now, no one can say precisely how the crisis "around Dodik" could unfold, but probably, according to good experts from Banja Luka and Sarajevo, elections will be organized in which Dodik would install someone loyal to him.
photo: fonet / instagram of the president of SerbiaFRIENDSHIP ON TEMPTATION: A. Vučić and M. Dodik
EVERYTHING IS THE SAME, ONLY DODIK IS RICHER
Since returning to power in 2006, Dodik has done everything he could to consolidate his position and cancel any possible alternative. Twenty years earlier, he was considered a moderate liberal, a conservative who was built, politically, according to American standards, but over time things got out of control. Because it is obvious that after 2006 it never occurred to him to step down from power. He built a system based on corruption and siphoning off public money, and the only thing that increased in the last two decades in the Republika Srpska was his wealth and influence.
In the last 13 years, since Aleksandar Vučić has been at the table in Belgrade, Dodik's greatest success was that he managed to stay in power. Namely, Vučić loves political flyers - in the 2012 campaign, Dodik was on the side of Boris Tadić - but still he does not forget insults and harsh words, and especially, it seems, he does not forget how Dodik came to power and what happened to Vučić's party friend in Bosnia, Nikola Poplašen. This professor of philosophy from Banja Luka disappeared from the political scene of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the entities since in 1999 the high representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Carlos Westendorp, removed him from the post of president of Srpska and banned him from political activity. And all this in order to make room for the then politically and financially small and weak Dodik.
If we were to go back to that time, we would see that the radicals were saying the same thing then and now: Serbia and the Serbian people were under attack, either because of the bombing of the then FRY, or because of the interference of "foreigners" in the political life of Serbs in Bosnia. Literally the same thing is repeated today by Vučić, but now Dodik is doing the same, who has moved "to the other side", to the one where blueberries are picked with the patriarch, and measures are not taken that would bring a better life to the people of Republika Srpska.
What happened then to the head of the radicals in Bosnia, the then "Serbian list before the Serbian list", is now happening to Milorad Dodik. The real question is whether the ban on political activity will be functional as it was in the case of Poplašen, who never recovered politically. Then the decision was made by a powerful High Representative, and now the Court of a sovereign but dysfunctional state due to disobeying the decisions of a weak High Representative.
The ordinary world is interested in how this will affect their daily lives, as well as whether Bosnia can emerge from the vortex of corruption and inter-ethnic tensions 30 years after the end of the war.
If we ask Dodik, he will surely say that he is the guarantor of the survival of the Serbs and their development, and fundamentally - apart from spending public money on projects that would have belonged to private initiatives, such as allocating 100 million euros to beautify the Jahorin ski center, where more than 300 thousand square meters have been built in the last ten years - there are not many examples that could illustrate how people in the RS live better now than 20 years ago when Dodik came to power for the third time.
Neither did he build the entity so that it could develop, nor did he try to make BiH a state that will deal with the legacy of the war and provide a better life for its citizens with those from the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, another entity, as well as the federal authorities in Sarajevo, of which he was also a part.
He, like now, had a public quarrel with Sarajevo. As with Europe and the USA, under whose sanctions he and his family are. Despite this, his wealth increased and his power in the RS grew from year to year. If at the beginning of his career he seemed like a tough but reasonable politician, over time he turned into a headstrong and rude kabadah who disperses his enemies with noise and curses.
VIEW OF SARAJEVO
Now, it seems, the bill has arrived for collection. And everything that is seen and heard - starting from Vučić and French President Macron, through Italian Prime Minister Meloni and US Prime Minister Marco Rubio, to the Austrian president who stopped by Belgrade - says that Dodik must be reined in and that there must be peace in Bosnia. It seems that such a message pleases everyone, that it is good even for Dodik himself and his family. He really has a place to "retire", but the question is how the fragmented political scene in the RS will look after that and who could occupy the political space left behind him.
If we imagine that he is the new Scared and that his career is over, and we know that he will be influential considering the political and financial roots that he has planted in the last twenty years, it seems that there will be no "good outcome" in the Serbian entity of BiH until encouraging messages about a possible functional coexistence begin to arrive from Sarajevo. It seems to the Serbs that Sarajevo is interfering in their affairs, and that Banjaluka has no influence on what is happening in the Federation of BiH, which is understood as injustice and pressure. Decisions made by Sarajevo and concerning the organization, status or anything from the political life of Srpska are interpreted as an act of violence and preparation of attacks, and thus there is a mobilization of "patriotic forces" even among those social groups that would rather call themselves citizens than Serbs.
After all, the liberal Dodik ends up as the anointed Dodik, and such a transformation is not only due to age and heritage. There is already enough in the fact that Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the RS within it, were neglected for decades, and its inhabitants were not capable of fighting for a better society on their own.
That is why we will have exciting events in the fall, both in the RS and in Serbia - there may be elections both there and here, so the question is whether Dodik will be able to send votes "across the Drina" again. Maybe this time it will stay for domestic use only.
Dodik — one career
1959. Born on March 12 in Banja Luka (Laktaši municipality), then Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, SFRY.
1986-1990 — He is actively involved in local politics; elected president of the Municipality of Laktaşi in 1986 (at that time as a member of the League of Communists).
1990 — After the multi-party elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina, he became a deputy in the Assembly of Republika Srpska on behalf of Ante Marković's Union of Reform Forces, and later founded his own political party — the Union of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD).
1992-1995 — During the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, a member of the Parliament of the RS; in the political sense, he is considered a "moderate" MP who was not part of Radovan Karadzic's inner circle.
1998 (January) — After the dismissal of the RS Government under the leadership of Momcilo Krajišnik and Biljana Plavšić, he was appointed by a high representative of the international community as a mandate holder.
1998-2001 — Prime Minister of the Republic of Srpska (first mandate); then it has the support of the West and international institutions.
2001-2006 — Opposition in the RS; SNSD is strengthening its political base, and Dodik is taking a more solid, nationally oriented course.
2006-2010 — Prime Minister of Republika Srpska (second term) after the SNSD's convincing victory in the elections.
2010-2018 — President of the Republic of Srpska (two consecutive mandates: 2010–2014 and 2014–2018). During this period, he additionally directs his rhetoric towards strengthening the autonomy of the RS within BiH and openly criticizes the central institutions in Sarajevo.
2018-2022 — Member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina from among the Serbian people, known for frequent political conflicts with Bosniak and Croat members of the Presidency and for boycotting state institutions on several occasions.
2022–present — President of Republika Srpska again (for the third time). He continues the policy of contesting the competences of the central authorities of BiH, advocates the transfer of competences from the level of BiH to the entity of RS, and maintains close relations with Serbia and Russia.
Big summer discount on "Vreme"! Just click here, choose a subscription and support the editorial staff in their independent work.
