TI BiH: Misuse of public resources for the election campaign is still dominant, a map of pre-election works and spending is also presented

Sarajevo, August 31, 2022 In the past two months, Transparency International observers in Bosnia and Herzegovina (TI BiH) recorded over 1,300 examples of the use of public resources for the promotion of parties and candidates and a significant increase in public spending in the pre-election period. 36 reports were sent to the Central Election Commission due to early campaigning, violation of the Law on Financing Political Parties and abuse of public resources, which unfortunately is not adequately regulated even by the latest amendments to the Election Law imposed by the OHR.

Thus, Central Election Commission rejected the first charges of TI BIH, because the ban on abuse of public resources only applies to the period of the official election campaign that starts on September 2, and everything that happened in the past period will go unpunished. For now, Comission has sanctioned only instances of early campaigning, and eight sanctions have been issued based on the charges of TI BIH.

TI BIH has been warning for a long time that the election campaign is being conducted with public funds, and one of the most recent examples is the paid promotion of the documentary movie “From vision to victory” broadcast by RTRS for the promotion of which dozens of billboards were placed with the image of the director of the University Clinical Center of the RS, Vlado Dajic, who is also a candidate for parliament. The same case applies to the paid billboards of the Public Institution “Drina National Park” promoting the director of this institution, Radomir Pavlovic, who is also a candidate for parliament, and both cases were reported to Central Election Commission. Although the campaign lasts 30 days, political parties have long since started holding open pre-election rallies, the largest number of which was held by the SDA. In a large number of them, the participation of employees in public institutions and even police officers was noticed.

In the past period, a large number of examples of abuse of events organized by public institutions for the promotion of parties and candidates have been recorded, but unfortunately this phenomenon is prohibited by law only during the official election campaign. TI BIH observed 350 public events organized by institutions, and 67 percent were attended by candidates in the elections. As many as 32 events in the past two months refer to concerts organized by local communities, and at one of them, during the “Zenica Summer Fest”, Mayor Fuad Kasumovic gave political speeches and indirectly called for voting.

At concerts at “Zvornik Summer”, graphic solutions in the colors of the SNSD were used, while at one of the concerts in Banja Luka, the audience was shown a video with the fulfilled pre-election promises of the current mayor. In Banja Luka and the surrounding local communities, a series of “Krajisko vece” events were held, where SNSD candidates were directly promoted, and these events are organized by an agency that receives significant public funds through a tender.

Unfortunately, unlike neighboring countries, Bosnia and Herzegovina did not introduce a limit on public spending in the pre-election period, which is again this year a key resource that is being misused when buying votes and promoting candidates.

That is why TI BIH has published an online map of pre-election works, the beginning or end of which has been promoted in the past two months. The data show that in the entire BiH from July 1st, 249 works worth BAM 845 million started, 227 works worth BAM 175 million were completed, and the total value of public works in these two months has already exceeded the annual value of all works that, according to the data of the Public Procurement Agency, were contracted all last year. An additional practice that has been introduced is the presentation of construction plans for infrastructure facilities, for which procedures have not yet been initiated, and in the previous two months the value of such promised projects is over BAM 500 million.

A significant increase in one-time financial help aimed at various population groups was also recorded, where in most cases it was done as the indirect purchase of voter support with public funds. Thus, since July 1, over BAM 200 million have been distributed to citizens through one-time grants from all levels of government, and the most significant are the entity governments’ allocations of over 100 million for one-time aid to pensioners, veterans, youth and social categories. In addition to these, which TI BiH has already reported, one-time electricity subsidies of BAM 100 are issued for 70,000 users in FBIH, assistance from the Government of Tuzla Canton to all pensioners in the amount of BAM 100 each, assistance from the Government of Herzegovina-Neretva Canton to the unemployed in the amount of BAM 100, assistance from the Municipality of Prnjavor for young people going on excursion and one-time help to medical workers in Banja Luka, Drvar and Prijedor. There were also 17 cases of salary increases for employees in the public sector, as well as 41 examples of increased employment in public institutions and companies.

TI BiH points out that all these examples, as well as the significant increase in public spending in the pre-election period, show that the conditions for fair and honest elections have not been created in BiH, because candidates and parties with public resources have a significant advantage. Even after the official start of the election campaign, TI BiH will continue to monitor the activities of officials, parties and candidates, especially focusing on violations of the rules of conduct in the campaign, abuse of public resources, pressure on voters and other phenomena, and will also monitor the campaign expenses of individual parties.

TI BiH therefore once again invites citizens to report all these irregularities via the mobile application Reflektor: Izbori 2022, which enables quick and easy registration, and which can be downloaded via the link: https://reflektor.ba/

Press rls_31.08.22_