Bosnia peace overseer Mr Paddy Ashdown has sacked 60 Bosnian Serb officials over the failure by the authorities to arrest top war crimes suspect Mr Radovan Karadzic.
Earlier it emerged that the arrest of Mr Karadizic was imminent.
Those removed included parliament speaker Mr Dragan Kalinic, a wartime ally of Mr Karadzic, and interior minister Mr Zoran Djeric.
"I decided to remove these people from public and party positions," Mr Ashdown told a press conference.
Mr Ashdown has sweeping powers to remove officials seen as obstructing the peace process under the 1995 Dayton accord that ended Europe's worst conflict since World War Two.
The chief UN war crimes prosecutor for former Yugoslavia said earlier she expected Mr Karadzic to be arrested today.
Ms Carla del Ponte refused to disclose the basis for her optimism that Mr Karadzic, who has been in hiding for nearly a decade.
"I'm still thinking that somebody is looking for Karadzic very hard, and that he will be arrested very soon," she said. "Of course I have (information). But you all understand that I cannot tell it now publicly. Let's obtain the arrest of Karadzic and after we will speak about what we have done."
Ms Del Ponte was responding to a question about a report that she felt Mr Karadzic would be handed over to the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, this month. When a reporter noted that June ends today, she replied: "I'm still expecting (it), yes. But let's see."