BS
In mid-September, the Coalition for Free and Fair Elections “Pod lupom” reported the Coalition NES BiH, PDA, Naprijed BiH and candidate Šemsudin Mehmedović for the misuse of children for political purposes.
On September 13, a post was published on the official Facebook profile of Šemsudin Mehmedović, president of the Naprijed BiH political party, showing children present at a rally, with some wearing T-shirts featuring the party logo.
The applicant considers that children have neither the legal nor the actual capacity to understand the political context, the content of the election campaign, or the consequences of public exposure for political promotion. Their presence and depiction necessarily amount to the exploitation of their person to reinforce the party’s political message. Any form of involving children in political promotion is an unacceptable exploitation of minors punishable under the Election Law of BiH.
Accordingly, the applicant considers that there has been a violation of Article 7.3 (8) of the Election Law of BiH, which stipulates that it is prohibited to misuse a child for political purposes, defined under Article 1.1a (31) of the Election Law of BiH as: “Misuse of children for political purposes is the involvement of a child in activities that may be associated with political advocacy or promotion.”
CIK established that candidate Šemsudin Mehmedović violated the Election Law of Bosnia and Herzegovina by misusing children for political purposes, as did the NES BIH, PDA, NAPRIJED coalition. CIK imposed a fine of 4,000 KM on the candidate and a fine of 6,000 KM on the coalition, which each coalition member will pay in equal shares of 2,000 KM.
