The aim of this report is to provide a clearer picture of compliance with legal restrictions on the use of public funds in the pre-election period, in order to reduce the possibility of unlawful influence on voters.
This document analyses the spending of state bodies and institutions of the Capital City during the campaign for local elections held on October 23, 2022, in 14 municipalities.
We collected comparative data on the spending of those institutions in the previous period through the Law on Free Access to Information, while during the election campaign, the institutions had to proactively publish information on their expenses. Based on that, we determined which reporting entities to the law spent more than the average in the six-month period before the elections, which is the legal limit on spending in the pre-election campaign.
Our work was further complicated by the fact that the six-month average included the spending of institutions from the period of two governments that had ministries with different competencies. [3] In order to determine the average, we analysed the budget and the rebalance, which specified the allocation of funds in accordance with changes in competence.
This report also presents data on employment and operations of the largest
companies owned by the state and the Capital City, as well as numerous challenges that we encountered while accessing information. A special chapter is devoted to the use of institutional advantage by public officials during the election campaign.
Second part of the report analyses the practices of the Agency for Prevention of Corruption which is in charge of supervision over the implementation of the Law on Financing of Political Entities and Election Campaigns. Concrete cases and decisions of that institution that cause serious issues in practice are presented.
The publication of this report was supported by the Embassy of the Swiss
Confederation to the Republic of Serbia and to Montenegro, and the data used for its preparation were collected thanks to the financial support of the National Endowment for Democracy. The views and opinions expressed in this document do not necessarily reflect the views of the donors.
Complete report download HERE (PDF)
