Political parties have spent more than 8 million BAM for TV advertising, political gatherings and billboards so far

Until 2nd October, nine political parties spent more than 2,1 million BAM on TV and print advertising, while 10 political parties have organized more than 430 political meetings and events, whose organization cost more than 2 million BAM, which in total with the estimated costs of advertising through the form of billboards, posters and leaflets is minimum 8 million BAM.

Sarajevo, 4th October 2018 – Transparency International in Bosnia and Herzegovina (TI BiH) presented preliminary results of the election campaign monitoring, which confirmed that 9 political parties spent more than 2,1 million BAM on TV and print advertisements until 2nd October. In addition to this, the results showed that 10 political parties organized more than 430 political gatherings and events, whose organization cost more than 2 million BAM calculated on the basis of the average costs reported for political gatherings.

The highest amount of money for TV and print advertising was given by Srpska demokratska stranka (SDS) BAM 430.000, Savez nezavisnih socijaldemokrata (SNSD) which spent almost BAM 380.000, and Stranka demokratske akcije (SDA) with about BAM 310.000. They are followed by Demokratski narodni savez (DNS) with the estimated costs of advertising via digital and print media of about BAM 258.000, Ujedinjena Srpska with about BAM 233.000, Partija demokratskog progresa (PDP) with about BAM 240.000, Savez za pobjedu with about BAM 143.000, Savez za bolju budućnost with about BAM 104.000, Socijaldemokratska partija BiH (SDP) with about BAM 26.000, while HDZ had only 4 advertisements recorded.

These costs do not include costs of the outdoor advertising, billboards, posters and leaflets, which, according to the estimations during previous campaigns, can cost up to 4 million BAM, nor the costs of advertising though the social networks and online media, as the dominant form of advertising during this election campaign, and which are impossible to be determined now. Due to the increasingly dominant way of advertising political parties and the candidates through new media, this campaign was characteristic for a significant decrease in costs of advertising through traditional media.

Most pre-election gatherings has been organized by SNSD (87), followed by DN (70) and SDS (65), but having in mind the fact that the SDS candidates were presented at the gatherings together with other candidates of the remaining members of Savez za promjene, including PDP (15). The least number of political meetings has been organized by HDZ BiH (27) and PDA (12) which was mostly based on the territory of Tuzla canton, while HDZ BiH was mostly focused on visiting cities and municipalities, institutions and associations, and having meeting with local pastors and associations.

TI BiH has also monitored activities of political parties’ candidates who are holding legislative and executive functions, including the opening of facilities, meetings, visits to institutions, associations, citizens, and compared these activities with the ones performed during the same period in 2017. The results show that there is an enormous increase in the activity of officials during the pre-election campaign, which has been used for the promotion of political parties and individual candidates, and which in the end confirms the abuse of the official functions and the use of public resources and institutions for the personal promotion, and the promotion of the party. Candidates who were the most active, and who hold public functions, are Milorad Dodik, Dragan Covic and Zeljka Cvijanovic. Milorad Dodik performed 51 functionary activity in the campaign, while in the same period last year he performed only 9 of them. The same happened to Dragan Covic, who conducted 42 activities compared to 22 in September 2017.

During the monitoring process, TI BiH recorded numerous abuses of public functions and public resources for the purpose of conducting election campaign, which includes redirecting of the funds belonging to institutions for the promotion of political parties. TI BiH has informed the Central Election Commission about all cases recorded.

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