One-time assistance to pensioners in Republika Srpska appears in 2018, 2022, and 2026—each time in a general election year, while such allocations are absent in the years between general elections. Although the Election Law specifically lists one-time payments to citizens as a form of indirect vote-buying, the CEC believes there are no grounds even to initiate proceedings.
The Central Election Commission of Bosnia and Herzegovina will not initiate proceedings on the complaint filed by Transparency International in BiH regarding the decision by Republika Srpska authorities to allocate 31.2 million KM for one-time assistance to pensioners in an election year.
TI BiH reported this case to the CEC, considering that such a one-time payment appearing in an election year does not constitute a “regular budget subsidy” within the meaning of the BiH Election Law. Although the Election Law specifically lists one-time cash payments to citizens among possible forms of direct or indirect vote-buying, the CEC believes that in this case there are no elements of misuse of public funds.
The reasoning essentially comes down to the fact that the funds were secured through a budget amendment, that is, through what the CEC in its response to TI BiH calls “regular budget procedure and planned budget allocations.”
However, the problem is that the Election Law stipulates that misuse of public funds includes providing one-time monetary or non-monetary assistance to citizens or categories of citizens, and exempts from this only assistance planned within regular budgetary subsidies.
If it is sufficient for authorities to amend the budget a few months before elections and insert one-time assistance into it, then a simple method has been opened to shield almost any pre-election payment from the application of this provision of the Election Law. The formula is simple—first adopt a rebalancing, then distribute the money.
In that case, the legal exception for “regular budget subsidies” is no longer, practically speaking, an exception but becomes the rule, since almost any spending of public money must ultimately have some budgetary basis.
Even more problematic is that the CEC reached this conclusion not after proceedings in which all circumstances of the case would be examined, but rather refused to initiate proceedings ex officio, even though the data TI BiH provided to the CEC show a pattern that, at the very least, required detailed examination.
“Regular” assistance that regularly appears before general elections
What the CEC did not seriously address in its response is precisely the question of how truly “regular” this assistance is. A review of budgets and budget amendments from previous years shows that this assistance does not have the characteristics of a regular budget subsidy, as TI BiH pointed out in its initiative to initiate proceedings.
In 2018, when General Elections were held, the second budget amendment of the RS Budget planned 18.2 million KM for “current assistance to pensioners.” Four years later, again in a General Election year, the second budget amendment under the item “current assistance to pensioners and veterans” planned 78.8 million KM. The budget amendment of the Republic of Srpska Budget for 2026 planned 31.2 million KM under the economic code “Current Assistance to Pensioners.” Pensioners with below-average pensions should receive 120 KM each, while others should receive 80 KM each.
In the budgets and rebalancings for 2019, 2020, 2021, 2023, 2024, and 2025—that is, in the years between general elections—such allocations are absent.
It is precisely for this reason that TI BiH pointed out to the CEC that continuity is an essential characteristic of regular budgetary payments and that the mere fact that a measure was subsequently entered into a rebalancing cannot automatically mean it meets the legal exemption for regular budgetary subsidies.
It was particularly emphasized that the assistance appears before general elections, is absent in the years between general elections, involves a direct one-time payment, and is directed toward a large category of the population.
In its response to this argument, the CEC primarily addressed the formal procedure for adopting the rebalancing and RS Premier Sava Minić’s post on the social network X.
The Commission states that the rebalancing was proposed by the RS Government and adopted by the RS National Assembly, and that the decision on the distribution of public money was not made independently by an individual. Minić’s post, according to the CEC’s position, represents informing the public about a budgetary measure, not evidence that funds were used for direct or indirect vote-buying.
Ultimately, the CEC concludes that, given that the assistance was planned through rebalancing, that is, through regular budgetary procedure, it did not establish facts that would indicate misuse of public funds and therefore could not initiate and conduct proceedings ex officio.
Let us repeat once more: this completely changes the question posed by the law, because it is not disputed that the rebalancing was adopted through the prescribed procedure. It is questionable whether one-time assistance that lacks continuity and appears precisely in general election years can become a “regular budget subsidy” simply because it has been entered into a budget amendment.
The CEC, in practice, answers this question affirmatively.
What can actually be considered a “regular budget subsidy”
The analysis of budgetary spending prepared for TI BiH by former Auditor General Dževad Nekić makes precisely this distinction between regular entitlements and one-time payments.
According to this analysis, regular and planned allocations should derive from legally established rights or long-term public policies, have continuity across multiple fiscal years, be based on predefined criteria, show no unusual changes in election years, and not depend on discretionary decisions by the executive.
Conversely, one-time payments without continuity, suddenly introduced or increased in an election year and concentrated in the pre-election period are cited as indicators that it is not a regular subsidy. As a concrete example, the analysis cites one-time assistance to pensioners and other categories of citizens that is not systemically regulated and does not exist from year to year.
The current case in RS fits precisely this pattern because the assistance is one-time, lacks continuity, was introduced retroactively in 2026 through rebalancing, and the same type of allocation appears in 2018, 2022, and 2026. In other words, almost all the criteria the analysis identifies as problematic are present in the case regarding which the CEC did not even initiate proceedings.
Nekić warns that the boundary between permissible and impermissible cannot be reduced merely to whether a payment has been formally entered into the budget, but rather its actual effect and the context in which the money is distributed must be analyzed. Therefore, he states, the exception for “regular and planned allocations” should be interpreted restrictively, so that it does not become a formal justification for politically motivated distribution of public funds.
A pension is indeed a legally established right, just as regular pension adjustments can represent a permanent public policy. One-time assistance that appears precisely in general election years does not have that character.
It is precisely for this reason that, according to TI BiH’s position based on Dževad Nekić’s analysis, the purpose and circumstances of such a payment should be examined, rather than automatically exempting it from the prohibition simply because a budgetary item has been secured for it.
The CEC has previously interpreted “regular subsidies” broadly
The CEC’s response is merely a continuation of the practice due to which TI BiH has been warning for some time that the legal prohibition on indirect vote-buying through one-time payments has been almost rendered meaningless.
During the 2024 Local Elections, TI BiH pointed out that the CEC accepts various payments as “regular subsidies” as soon as authorities show that a budget item exists for them, regardless of whether such payments had been regularly disbursed previously.
By early September of that year, although approximately 53 million KM had been distributed to citizens through various one-time payments in just two months of the pre-election period, no one was sanctioned under the provision prohibiting this type of vote-buying.
The examples show how broadly the concept of “regular” subsidy has been interpreted.
In Nevesinje, the CEC refused to establish misuse due to a one-time payment for a graduation party because the funds were allocated from the budgetary reserve, which the CEC considered part of planned budgetary funds.
One-time payments to graduates in Istočno Novo Sarajevo were not a problem because the mayor stated that the money was planned in the budget.
For similar reasons, the complaint regarding financing of a free excursion for pensioners from Novo Sarajevo was not accepted either—a municipality in which the then-mayor Benjamina Karić was a candidate for mayor.
Particularly illustrative is the case of Banja Luka Mayor Draško Stanivuković and free transport for pensioners. The CEC treated it as a regular payment implemented in previous years as well, even though the City Administration itself announced that pensioners were receiving free transport for the first time.
Moreover, the CEC’s practice is not even consistent. SNSD was fined 10,000 KM in 2024 after Milorad Dodik distributed contracts for financial assistance for agricultural and livestock development in Bosanski Petrovac during the election campaign, even though the decision on that project was made back in 2023. The CEC then considered precisely the timing of contract distribution an indicator of misuse of public resources. According to the logic it now applies, it remains unclear why earlier planning of funds was not sufficient then to exclude misuse.
Arnautović: TI BiH is “probably right in 99 percent of cases”
In the meantime, CEC member Suad Arnautović, responding to TI BiH’s criticism regarding the small number of sanctions, said that the problem lies in the lack of personnel to process the large number of cases, adding that TI BiH is “probably right in 99 percent of cases when they criticize this.”
However, lack of capacity can explain why some cases are pending, but not the manner in which the CEC decides on cases it does process. If the Commission is already considering a complaint and taking a legal position, then the number of employees cannot be a justification for a standard that practically renders the legal prohibition meaningless.
