Analysis of the 2024 Local Election Campaign: Public Service Gives Most Airtime to Trojka and SNSD

(Patria) - Transparency International (TI) in BiH has published an analysis of political party financing and the abuse of public resources during the 2024 Local Election campaign.

The goal of the monitoring is to point out irregularities that undermine the integrity of elections, reports Istraga.ba.

During the pre-election campaign for the 2024 Local Elections, officials from SDP, SNSD, Our Party, and HDZ BiH had the most space for promoting their views in BHRT's news programs.

SNSD officials received a total of 1,682 minutes in the public broadcaster's news programs during the official election campaign, followed by PDP with 34 minutes, DNS with 31 minutes, United Srpska with 23, and DEMOS with 16 minutes.

According to TI BiH data, Milorad Dodik appeared 197 times in RTRs broadcasts during the 30-day election campaign, which allowed his party the greatest representation in the public broadcaster's news and other programs.

During the election campaign on Radio-Television of the Federation of BiH, officials from SDP (101 minutes), NiP (71 minutes), Our Party (48 minutes), and SDA (29 minutes) appeared the most.

TI BiH points out that increased employment in public companies, institutions, and agencies for electoral support is a clear abuse of public resources, leading to unequal electoral conditions.

They provided some examples of public tenders announced for the employment of a larger number of workers in the pre-election period.

Examples include the Cantonal Hospital Zenica Public Institution (167 employees), Ministry of Internal Affairs of Zenica-Doboj Canton (118), KJKP GRAS Sarajevo (78), "Kakanj" Brown Coal Mine (65), and Unisginex Goražde (48).

During the election campaign, political parties spent at least 12.3 million BAM on pre-election rallies, billboard advertising, media, and Meta company ads, according to TI BiH estimates.

The estimated value of SDA's billboards is 805 thousand BAM, SDP's 723 thousand BAM, SNSD's 548 thousand BAM, HDZ's 418 thousand BAM, DF's 357 thousand BAM, NiP's 317 thousand BAM, SDS's 312 thousand BAM, PDP's 304 thousand BAM, Our Party's 164 thousand BAM, and Party for BiH's 146 thousand BAM.

SDA's total campaign expenses were slightly over one million BAM, SDP's 854 thousand BAM, SNSD's 801 thousand BAM, NiP's 622 thousand BAM, HDZ's 587 thousand BAM, DF's 530 thousand BAM, PDP's 509 thousand BAM, Our Party's 466 thousand BAM, SBiH's 278 thousand BAM, and SDS's 241 thousand BAM.

TI BiH also notes that it is evident that parties have been reporting liabilities to certain companies for years that they do not settle. These debts are written off after a certain period, and this represents one way parties finance private companies while circumventing legal prohibitions.

In the 2024 election year, parties reported liabilities amounting to 5.05 million BAM, which is 4.8 million BAM less than in 2022, the year of the General Elections.

NiP reported liabilities of 432 thousand BAM, of which at least 256 thousand were to companies offering printing and billboard installation services.

During the monitoring of the election campaign, a total of 203 NiP billboards were observed, valued at over 300 thousand BAM.

"The Party for BiH reported the largest amount of unpaid liabilities, which on November 5, 2024, amounted to a total of 494,082.00 BAM. It is important to emphasize that this party classified as much as 172,496.00 BAM under the item 'other suppliers', from which the identity of the individual or legal entity to whom the claims relate is not visible.

This party also reported over 242 thousand BAM in debt to companies offering printing and advertising panel installation services, and TI BiH's monitoring during the pre-election campaign recorded 94 billboards placed by this party," the analysis states.

According to post-election financial reports, political parties in Bosnia and Herzegovina reported a total of 9.7 million BAM in election campaign expenses. However, through monitoring just three segments of advertising and estimating the costs of pre-election rallies, TI BiH calculated that the actual costs amounted to at least 12.3 million BAM.

The most significant difference is with SNSD, amounting to over one million BAM, as the reported amount of around 800 thousand could not even cover the costs of this party's pre-election rallies attended by TI BiH observers.

"The fact that the BHI - Kasumović Fuad party reported only four thousand BAM in campaign expenses sounds scandalous," the analysis states.

You can read the full document at this link.