Bosnian Serb PM facing sack over speech

Bosnian Serb PM facing sack over speech

As part of his campaign for the general election on October 1, Milorad Dodik has repeatedly called for a referendum that would enable the Serb-run ministate, Republika Srpska, to secede from Bosnia-Herzegovina.

"If he continues to talk about the referendum, I will have to remove him from office," Christian Schwarz-Schilling, the international administrator, told Austrian radio in an interview yesterday.

The post of international administrator was established to oversee implementation of 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement that ended the 1992-95 Bosnian war. The representative has the right to sack government officials as high as the president to ensure it is followed.

The campaign for next month's local and national elections has been especially bitter, with politicians focusing rhetoric on the country's ethnic divisions and other problems left unresolved from the war.