BS
The Coalition for Free and Fair Elections “Pod Lupom” in June reported the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats for premature campaigning.
Igor Dodik, organizational secretary of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats – SNSD – Milorad Dodik, at a press conference on June 17 presented an assessment of the number of votes that candidates of the mentioned political entity could win, as well as expectations regarding the number of seats to be obtained in the upcoming elections. At the conference held at the SNSD headquarters, party president Milorad Dodik spoke about the need to win the elections, promoting the party in an electoral context before the official start of the campaign. “Whoever stands against us, we will defeat them; however they stand, they will lose; whatever they want, they will not get. It will be as the people say, and the people say SNSD, its candidates and our list,” Dodik said, referring to a “very, very organized way” of winning elections.
The Election Law of Bosnia and Herzegovina defines premature campaigning as “any form of pre-election activity undertaken by political entities in the period from the announcement of elections until the official start of election campaigns.” Since the content was disseminated through the media and via the SNSD YouTube channel, the Coalition “Pod lupom” considered that SNSD violated electoral rules.
The Central Election Commission (CIK) requested clarification from SNSD, which emphasized that it was an internal party event, that the statements were based on surveys, and that they did not present the public with a program or candidates. CIK rejected the appeal, noting that the circumstance in which candidates were not yet known does not exclude the possibility that addressing the public represents promotion of a political party, when the content of the messages bears the characteristics of an election campaign. “Of decisive importance is not the mere fact that a political party conducts surveys and, based on them, makes assessments and analyses of its results, but the way in which those assessments and analyses are presented to the public through press conferences, the content of which is published on the party’s YouTube channel,” the Central Election Commission stated.
CIK characterized the case as premature campaigning, a violation of Article 7.1 of the Election Law of Bosnia and Herzegovina. When imposing the fine, the Commission assessed that the fourth imposition of a penalty for violation of Article 7, paragraph 1 of the Election Law of Bosnia and Herzegovina would influence the political party and its supporters to refrain from further breaches of legal provisions.
