Coalition: Chaotic general election campaign in Bosnia

Pod lupom

The "Pod Lupom" coalition said they recorded a record number of irregularities during this year’s general election campaign. During the presentation of their second preliminary report on the election monitoring (July-October 2018), they said this year's election campaign was chaotic.

“We recorded a record number of election irregularities ever since the coalition began monitoring the election process. We’re getting the impression that political parties in Bosnia are doing whatever they want and that laws don’t apply to them as they do to other citizens,” the Coalition said. “They are able to do this thanks to the sluggishness of the electoral administration and investigative authorities.”

The coalition's observers recorded hundreds of cases of irregularities such as pressures on voters, buying of votes, blackmails with the termination of employment, offerings of new jobs in return for votes, abuses of public resources for campaign purposes, outdated election rolls in many municipalities, illegal trade in seats in electoral boards, etc.

The coalition said they received a number of reports from citizens on numerous cases of election fraud.

They noted that the most worrying phenomenon was the abuse of citizens’ personal information for the purpose of their registration for voting from abroad or via mail, which was done without their knowledge.

Unfortunately, they also recorded concrete messages calling for violence and discrimination against individuals and groups which should be the case of serious investigations by law enforcement institutions.

“The most prominent example of this is the recent election rally in Gacko (southern Bosnia) where Republika Srpska entity President Milorad Dodik, who is now a candidate for Bosnia’s tripartite Presidency, publicly threatened the citizens with job termination if they vote for the Serb Democratic Party (SDS),” the coalition said.

They called on all Bosnian citizens to check their registration information and to report all possible irregularities as soon as possible.