The Central Election Commission of BiH (CEC) has fined four parties a total of 15,600 BAM for premature campaigning based on complaints filed by Transparency International in Bosnia and Herzegovina (TI BiH). DNS, SDP, United Srpska, and PDP were penalized for sponsoring social media posts or conducting paid political advertising before the official start of the campaign.
At today’s session, sanctions were imposed against DNS in the total amount of 10,500.00 BAM for sponsored posts by this party’s candidates Nenad Nešić (3,500 BAM), Marko Kubatlija (3,000 BAM), and Aleksandar Glavaš (4,000 BAM).
It was particularly emphasized that this party had previously been fined by the CEC for the same offense, which had no effect, resulting in higher fines compared to other political entities.
Today, SDP BiH was also fined 1,700 convertible marks.
Earlier, United Srpska and PDP were each fined 1,700 convertible marks, as their candidates had also started premature campaigning, mainly on social media.
TI BiH has so far sent 28 complaints to the Central Election Commission regarding various irregularities and activities of political parties and their candidates during the pre-election period, which were observed with the help of field observers engaged by TI BiH for the purpose of monitoring the election campaign.
A number of complaints have also been received through the mobile application Reflektor, which allows citizens to easily, anonymously, and safely report occurrences such as premature campaigning, vote buying, misuse of public resources, and other types of electoral irregularities.
