One-time help and safe vote is a tried and tested practice for extending the mandate. In just one month, 29 million marks were distributed from the coffers of municipalities, cities, cantons and entities in Bosnia and Herzegovina to different categories of the population. Practically, officials gave a million marks a day to students, pensioners, returnees, and social categories. Additional millions to the accounts of municipalities and cities also arrived from the Government of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina – as much as 50 million marks. When will the citizens of this country understand that budget money is taxpayers’ money. And that the authorities buy them with their money years before the elections.
Pre-election practice: from citizens’ pockets to citizens’ pockets – all for the price of votes. Budget spending intensified. Politicians claim fair play, while observers from Transparency International claim the opposite when it comes to the distribution of public funds. So far, 183 cases of providing one-time assistance to various categories of society have been reported.
“Welcome to Bosnia and Herzegovina, a country where public money is wasted.” Where public money is guaranteed and where the political actors of those campaigns who spend the money will have their mouths full of those social categories in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Their mouths will be full of fighters, war veterans, of all categories who are in a state of social need and who needed that money. However, spending such money is like having a seriously ill patient who, instead of treating him with adequate therapy, you give him energy therapy and say, ‘It’s only good until it hurts,” says sociologist Vladimir Vasić.
“When it comes to one-off benefits to all categories of citizens, we see that there is an increase as the official election campaign is received, and at the moment a little more than 30 million BAM in direct benefits have been distributed, 100-200 BAM to lower categories of the population, not counting all other benefits that they are not monetary. “Unfortunately, although for the first time direct donations are prohibited by the Election Law, the CEC persistently refuses to see it as something prohibited, that is, by its inaction it legalizes the direct or indirect buying of voters in this way”, says Damjan Ožegović, associate for legal affairs of Transparency International BiH.
Abuses and violations of the Law were also noticed by the ‘Under the Magnify’ Coalition. According to them, the majority of reports to political entities refer to the misuse of public resources.
“Everything that political entities and candidates do in the elections before the elections is an election campaign – period! There is no other motive or reason why they would do their promotion. From this, it can be recognized that, possibly, it is a matter of misuse of public resources. What, unfortunately, we see is that the CEC does not sanction it because it grabs for any excuse: that it is planned, that it is from the budget reserve, that it represents something that the government has the right to do because life cannot be stopped and the like “, says Dario Jovanović, project manager of the Coalition for Free and Fair Elections Under the Scrutiny.
“He who is in power will abuse everything,” adds Vehid Šehić, president of the Strategic Committee of the Under Scrutiny Coalition.
The political race must be equal for everyone and within the time defined by the law. The Central Election Commission is on the move, which should act on applications under the Election Law of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Federalna writes.
