In Two Weeks Time Ten Political Parties Spent 780.000 only on Advertising

Banja Luka, 30^th September 2014 – Transparency International Bosnia and Herzegovina (TI BiH) has conducted monitoring and analysis of the second week of the election campaign of 10 selected political parties, taking into consideration advertising in electronic and print media. In the first two weeks of the campaign, the monitoring results have shown that ten political parties have spent more than 780.000 KM only for the advertising space in electronic and print media (10 TV stations and 9 printed publications).

The Party of Democratic Action and the Alliance for Change are on the leading positions when it comes to advertising expenses. In the first two weeks of the campaign, the Party of Democratic Action spent on advertising 285.000 KM, along with preparation of ads which had cost 90.000 KM the total cost of advertising amounted to 375.000 KM in. On the other side, the Alliance for Change spent on advertising around 160.000 KM, which along with the ads preparation that had cost 135.000 amounted to 295.000KM. It is interesting that in the first week of the campaign, the Party of Democratic Action had more than 50% of published ads than all parties together, while in the second week of the campaign that party published 44% of total number of ads.

The cost of advertising of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats and their coalition partners the Democratic People’s Alliance was 150.000 KM, along with add preparation the total amount of money spent for these purposes was about 257.000 KM. Candidates who advertise the most are Mr. Bakir Izetbegović and Mr. Ognjen Tadić.

The interesting fact is that some of the political parties like the Democratic Front and People’s Party for Work and Progress have not advertised on the media included in the monitoring, and the political party Union for Better Future has published a very small number of ads. This can be partly explained by recent arrest of some officials of the People’s Party for Work and Progress, and the fact that the leader of the Union for Better Future has its own media company which he uses for his promotion, so additional advertising is not necessary.

It is still the practice in the Republic of Srpska that only the ruling coalition advertises on the Public Broadcasting Service RTRS, and that BN TV advertises only the opposition parties.

Bearing in mind the fact that political parties advertise the most in the last two weeks of the campaign, it is expected that by the end of the campaign amounts of money spent on advertising are to increase significantly. On the other side, TI BiH reiterates that all mentioned amounts do not include the cost of outdoor advertising (billboards, posters, etc.) or rallies.

TI BiH uses this opportunity to once more warn political parties to lead more transparent election campaign, especially public officials who are candidates in the upcoming elections, to restrain themselves from using functions performed in the institutions in order to promote political parties to which they belong.

In Two Weeks Time Ten Political Parties Spent 780.000 only on Advertising