Before the elections, 278 million BAM from the budget was distributed to voters. The parties have spent 9.6 million BAM on the campaign

Sarajevo, September 29, 2022 In the past three months, Transparency International in Bosnia and Herzegovina (TI BiH) recorded over two thousand examples of the use of public funds for election promotion, and the Central Election Commission (CIK) received the first reports regarding this occurrence, which is prohibited by the latest amendments to the Election Law. TI BiH has so far submitted 70 reports to CIK, of which 16 refer to the misuse of public resources, which are regulated by the newly imposed provisions of the Election Law, which apply only during the official election campaign.

The reports mostly relate to the abuse of public institution events where some candidates campaigned, and how widespread this phenomenon is shows the fact that 76% of the 532 monitored public events involved candidates participating in the elections.

Two reports refer to the mayor of Zenica, who gave a pre-election speech during the official presentation of the new bus line to the citizens, while at the opening of a new playground, after the official ceremony and football tournament, he continued with the pre-election rally and concert where the candidates of his list were presented. Due to a similar case, the mayor of Laktaši, who organized a ceremony for the beginning of infrastructure works, where the city and SNSD were listed as organizers of the event, was also reported. HDZ was reported because officials of this party had party signs during an official visit to the hospital in Novi Travnik.

Also, the use of public companies’ equipment during the campaign was reported to CIK, and we single out examples from Drvar, where Public Company “Elektroprivreda HZ HB” put up pre-election posters of SNSD, while at the “Food Festival in Derventa” organized by this party, a vehicle from the fire department in Derventa was used. PDP was reported for misuse of a city billboard on which a poster promoting the mayor of Banja Luka and the candidate of that party was placed, promising citizens free legalization of residential facilities. Due to a similar situation, director of the University Clinical Center of the RS was also reported after placing dozens of billboards with his image promoting the RTRS film “From Vision to Victory”.

However, CIK rejected this report because the University Clinical Center stated that it did not pay for the billboards, but that they were rather donated by three companies that provide services for this type of advertising. The report was also rejected in the context of an early campaign with the explanation that it does not contain a pre-election message that could influence voters, even though CIK punished for similar cases in the previous period. That is why TI BiH also reported this case in the context of the Law on Financing of Political Parties.

Unfortunately, what TI BIH considers to be the biggest abuse of public resources, and is related to the increase in public spending before the elections, is still not punishable by the Election Law. In the past three months, according to TI BIH data, BAM 278 million was distributed through one-time aid to different categories of population, and among the most recent examples we single out the donation of 100 BAM from the Government of Federation of BIH at the end of the campaign to all unemployed persons, one-time aid to all employees of the Federation of BIH Railway in the amount of BAM 800, as well as two new tranches of BAM 100, to war veterans and youth in the Republic of Srpska. The SNSD president even directly admitted, at one of the pre-election rallies, that this money was given for the sake of the election, which was also reported to CIK in the context of misuse of public resources for election purposes.

Also, TI BIH published a map of pre-election works which shows that in the past three months, 334 opening ceremonies for completed public works before the elections were recorded, the value of which is about BAM 266 million. In the same period, 345 new projects worth BAM 1.1 billion were recorded, of which over 900 million refer to two sections of the highway, where start of construction is timed before the elections.

Election campaign costs

TI BIH also published the results of monitoring of the election campaign expenses, which show that the parties spent about BAM 9.6 million in the first three weeks of campaign. This amount was spent on billboards, advertisements in the media (television and print media), Facebook advertising and pre-election rallies, and by far the largest amounts were spent by SNSD (BAM 1.6 million ) and SDA (BAM 1.5 million ), followed by PDP and SDP, which have spent BAM 600,000 each on the campaign so far.

These amounts do not sum up to a total, because they do not include the costs of advertising and pre-election rallies in this last week of the election campaign, as well as the other forms of advertising that TI BiH did not monitor, but it can already be said that this is one of the most expensive election campaigns in BiH, because according to CIK data, the parties have never reported larger amounts.

Press rls_29.09.22_

See more

More on the costs of party promotion in the election campaign at Transparentno.ba: The most expensive election campaign – Parties have spent 9.6 million so far

More on the field and media monitoring process of pre-election activities of political subjects in BiH

Interactive map for monitoring the activities of political entities in the pre-election period

An overview of the placed advertising areas for external advertising of political entities during the 2022 election campaign.