Sarajevo (AFP) - Bosnia’s Serbian entity faced international criticism Saturday for ordering a referendum on whether it accepts a federal court verdict banning its president Milorad Dodik from public office.

Lawmakers in Republika Srpska’s (RS) regional assembly voted late Friday to hold a referendum on October 25 that would be a new challenge to the state’s weak central government.

The European Union delegation in Bosnia said Saturday the court ruling against Dodik “must be respected”.

“Subjecting a court decision to a public vote runs counter to the rule of law and the independence of judicial authorities,” it added in a post on X.

“We expect the Republika Srpska authorities to de-escalate the situation and respect the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and constitutional and legal order of Bosnia and Herzegovina.”

Britain’s ambassador to Bosnia, Julian Reilly, made a similar call, saying that any referendum on the court decision would be “illegal”.

Dodik, 66, was convicted in February by a Bosnian federal court of flouting decisions by Christian Schmidt, the international envoy enforcing a peace deal that ended Bosnia’s 1992-1995 war.

He avoided a one-year prison sentence by paying a 19,000-euro ($22,000) fine, but an appeals court upheld a ruling that he be removed from the RS presidency and banned from political office for six years.

Dodik has vowed to block elections in Republika Srpska and to hold a series of referendums – the first of which would be the vote on the court ruling.

Bosnian Serb lawmakers voted to put the question: “Do you accept the decisions of the unelected foreigner (envoy Schmidt) and the unconstitutional verdict of the Bosnia-Herzegovina Court against the president of the RS, as well as the decision of the Bosnian Electoral Commission to revoke the mandate of the president of the RS, Milorad Dodik?”

Fifty of the 65 lawmakers present voted in favour. Opposition lawmakers refused to vote. “I won’t get in your way… but you’re walking on a minefield,” warned one opposition lawmaker, Nebojsa Vukanovic, a fierce critic of Dodik.

- Dodik seeks public backing -

Dodik has said he expects the Serbian majority population of Republika Srpska to massively vote “no” to the referendum question. He has also threatened to hold a referendum on independence for the Serbian entity.

The nationalist Bosnian Serb has been in power since 2006. He blames Schmidt, a former German minister who has been international envoy for Bosnia since 2021, for his ouster.

The RS parliament also passed votes rejecting Schmidt’s authority, demanding that Dodik continue as the RS president, and rejecting elections to choose a new president.

Bosnia’s electoral commission is expected however to call early elections for the RS presidency.

Dodik’s prime minister Radovan Viskovic resigned on Monday. He did not give a reason but his departure deepened the sense of political crisis in Bosnia.

Dodik on Saturday named Savo Minic, agriculture minister in Viskovic’s government, as the new prime minister.

Viskovic and Dodik had been accused of undermining Bosnia’s constitutional order after the RS parliament voted to bar federal police and the judiciary from operating in the Serb entity.

Both have also been sanctioned by the United States for threatening the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement and undermining Bosnia’s fragile sovereignty.

Bosnia has been split between Serbian and Bosnian-Croat entities since the 1990s war, in which tens of thousands died. The country is held together by weak central institutions.