Dodik Works, Institutions Remain Silent: Who Is Stopping the Collapse of the State?

By: Amina Čorbo-Zećo

While Milorad Dodik, president of the Republika Srpska entity, is step by step advancing his agenda of creating parallel institutions within Bosnia and Herzegovina, the question legitimately arises whether he has actually already won?

After the National Assembly of RS, under his control, adopted the entity Election Law, which the Constitutional Court of BiH declared unconstitutional, entity institutions are now going further, announcing a public competition for the election of the Republican Election Commission, a body that should take over the role of the Central Election Commission of BiH in the territory of RS. And this means only one thing, and RS is formally beginning its electoral secession.

What is most intriguing, and what we have been witnessing for months, is that state institutions are unable to respond to Dodik's dismantling of the constitutional order. No one has yet answered the question of why this is so, whether they are unable or unwilling.

Before everyone starts complaining that Christian Schmidt is doing nothing, responsibility should be placed on the BiH Prosecutor's Office, which must promptly react to the open disrespect of the Constitutional Court's rulings. Responsibility also certainly lies with the parliamentary majority, which continuously calculates political damage instead of defending the constitutional order.

The law, which has already been declared unconstitutional, has not only not been withdrawn but is being implemented in practice. And not only that, it is gaining institutional infrastructure in the form of an entity election commission, a public competition, budget funds, legal articles, and formal legitimacy within the entity.

And while all this is happening, the Constitutional Court is left without domestic judges because SNSD systematically blocks appointments, and the BiH executive branch shows no will to respond institutionally.

In such an environment, it increasingly looks like Dodik doesn't even need to declare the independence of RS; he has already built a system that behaves as if it were independent.
Perhaps Dodik is not just a politician dismantling the constitutional order; perhaps he has already succeeded in its quiet deconstruction. And he always embarks on concrete actions after returning from Russia!

And of course, he does this not by force, but by the emptiness of BiH institutions that lacked the strength, will, or integrity to stop him.