Although the General Elections for 2026 were called on May 7, political parties and officials throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina are freely conducting premature election campaigns and misusing public resources without the possibility of sanctions. Due to a legal provision stipulating that prohibitions apply exclusively to “certified” political entities, the Central Election Commission (CEC) has not imposed penalties for evident violations until the June deadlines expire.
Rules of conduct during the election period are strictly defined in Chapter 7 of the BiH Election Law, which prohibits premature campaigning, including organizing public gatherings, distributing promotional materials, and paid advertising from the date elections are called until the results are confirmed.
However, Article 1.1a of the same law defines that these prohibitions apply exclusively to political parties, independent candidates, and coalitions that are officially certified to participate. Given that the deadlines for certification of parties and independent candidates are June 6, 2026, and for coalitions June 23, a legal vacuum has been created in which election regulations are de facto not applied and violations cannot be sanctioned.
This legal loophole and institutional inaction are already being exploited by numerous politicians, with billboards promoting newly formed parties and political movements visible throughout the country, such as those of Dr. Vlado Đajić and Draško Stanivuković, which TI BiH reported to the Central Election Commission (CEC) for premature campaigning.
The CEC, however, issued a decision stating that these political entities are not subject to sanctions because they are not officially certified, thereby effectively rendering the prohibition on premature campaigning meaningless.
We recall that TI BiH has previously reported Vlado Đajić on multiple occasions for various forms of premature campaigning as well as misuse of public resources for personal promotion. With these actions, he has essentially continued the practice from the period when he operated within SNSD, exploiting ambiguities in the election law to conduct promotion unhindered.
Concurrently, classic examples of misuse of public events and institutions for personal promotion of officials during a period when this is not permitted are being recorded. The SNSD municipal board in Foča highlighted on its official Facebook page that “the Municipality of Foča is the sponsor of the graduation ceremony,” with photographs and text in which Mayor Milan Vukadinović and Assembly President Nikola Vasiljević, both from that party, welcome graduates, appropriating a public event for their own promotion.
Similar practices are freely taking place in the online space, where rules are openly violated through paid advertising, as best demonstrated by Mirnes Ajanović, a councilor in the Tuzla City Council and president of the BOSS party, who, despite legal prohibitions on premature campaigning, continuously publishes and promotes paid advertisements on the Facebook platform, many of which are marked as political advertising even by the company itself.
Although such actions constitute a drastic violation of rules of conduct during the pre-election period, for which penalties of 3,000 to 30,000 KM are prescribed for parties and coalitions and 3,000 to 15,000 KM for candidates, they remain unsanctioned because political entities are not yet officially certified with the CEC.
In order to combat similar occurrences and strengthen the integrity of the electoral process, Transparency International in BiH is initiating a comprehensive monitoring process of pre-election activities of political entities, candidates, as well as government institutions, public officials, and public institutions, enterprises, and their managers. The monitoring includes field observation of events, media and online space monitoring, as well as public spending during the period from the calling of elections, and all identified irregularities will be documented and reported to competent institutions for action, in an effort to ensure that every violation is adequately addressed and sanctioned.
Therefore, TI BiH calls on all participants in the electoral process, including political parties, candidates, public institutions, and officials, to adhere to the rules and legal provisions so that elections are conducted in a fair and honest atmosphere with as few abuses and examples as possible that diminish citizens’ trust in the electoral process itself.
