Bosnia's Serbian entity, whose president Milorad Dodik is defying a ban on him holding office, will stage a referendum on October 25 on the federal court verdict against him.
Lawmakers in Republika Srpska's (RS) regional assembly voted late Friday for the referendum amid a worsening political crisis after Dodik's prime minister resigned this week.
The action faced immediate international condemnation. The European Union delegation in Bosnia said that 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 the international envoy enforcing a peace deal that ended Bosnia's 1992-1995 war.
Dodik 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 (international envoy Christian 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?"
Of the 65 lawmakers present, 50 voted in favour. Opposition lawmakers refused to cast votes.
"I won't get in your way... but you're walking on a minefield," warned one opposition RS lawmaker, Nebojsa Vukanovic, a fierce critic of Dodik.
- Dodik seeks public backing -
Dodik has said he expects the Serbian 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 leader 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 statelet's president, and rejecting elections to choose a successor to him.
Following the federal ban on Dodik, Bosnia's electoral commission is expected to call early elections for the RS presidency.
Outgoing RS prime minister Radovan Viskovic did not give a reason for his resignation on Monday. He stated only that a new government would be formed.
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 political units since the 1990s war, in which tens of thousands died. The country is held together by weak central institutions.
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