The BiH Prosecutor's Office has made a final decision on the criminal complaint filed by Transparency International in BiH (TI BiH) against Milorad Dodik, the leader of the Party of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) for threatening pensioners and workers of Gacko Power Plant during the 2018 election campaign, concluding that there are no elements of criminal acts, the TI BiH said Wednesday.
The TI BiH reported this case in the 2018 election campaign because on the grounds for suspicion that the threats represented a criminal offence related to the violation of the freedom of choice of voters. The acting prosecutor refused to initiate an investigation, explaining that the threat was not specific, that the election speech was not only listened to by the Gacko Power Plant employees, but also by unidentified persons, and that “it is not clear how dismissals from work can occur.”
“The words spoken by Milorad Dodik at the election rallies in Ugljevik and Gacko are extremely inappropriate from the aspect of the correctness of expression and respect for other participants in the election process. However, they did not cause serious fear among those present, nor were they taken seriously. An inspection of the records from these gatherings shows that they were accompanied by laughter and applause. In that sense, the allegations of the acting prosecutor regarding the absence of elements of a criminal offence are true,” said the decision of the Prosecutor's Office of BiH signed by the Chief Prosecutor Gordana Tadic.
The TI BiH argues that these arguments are especially controversial due to the increasingly frequent occurrences of control of the election process (photographing ballots, etc.) and is interesting in the context of Dodik's recent threats to Banja Luka residents after the last elections that he will “take the data from every polling station” and deny economic aid to those areas.
The TI BiH considers it especially disputable that the Prosecutor's Office did not take into account the fact that the threat was made by a person who is in a prominent social position and has real political power when considering the threat and its criminal-legal relevance. In this way, the TI BiH said the Prosecution sent a message that economic conditioning and threats to voters will go unpunished.
The organisation recalled that Milorad Dodik threatened the Gacko Power Plant employees during the 2018 election campaign that they would be “sacked” if they vote for opposition candidates and told the pensioners they would not receive the lump-sum aid if they do not vote for his party.
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