BS
The Coalition for Free and Fair Elections “Pod lupom” reported the Coalition “Draško Stanivuković – Pokret Sigurna Srpska” in August for premature campaigning.
Video recordings regarding the launched initiative “Health Without Tax”, which was promoted through the collection of citizen signatures and street stands, were published on the official Facebook page of Draško Stanivuković (PDP) and the official Facebook profile of the Safe Srpska Movement Coalition. The Facebook post published on Draško Stanivuković’s profile states, among other things: “Politics must serve the people. That is why we are waging this fight among the people, and not from offices…”, followed by: “We are continuing further, because we believe that the biggest changes are set in motion when the people raise their voice.”
The Election Law of BiH defined a premature campaign as “every form of campaign-related activities undertaken by political subjects in the period from the calling of elections to the period of the official start of the election campaign.” Furthermore, the Election Law of BiH defines an election campaign as “actions and procedures… during which a political subject, in a manner prescribed by law, acquaints voters and the public with their programs and candidates for the upcoming elections.”
The applicant of the initiative considers this to be a violation of Article 7.1 of the Election Law of BiH, which stipulates that during the period of premature election campaigning, it is prohibited to conduct an election campaign in electronic, online, and print media, via social media, or through any form of public advertising of the campaign.
The Central Election Commission determined that this constituted a premature campaign. It imposed a fine of 8,500 BAM on the Coalition “Draško Stanivuković – Pokret Sigurna Srpska”, and a fine of 5,000 BAM on candidate Draško Stanivuković. When deciding on the amount of the fine, the CIK was guided by the fact that it had already imposed four fines on Draško Stanivuković for premature campaigning up to that point.
