Alliance of Independent Social Democrats party leader Milorad Dodik (R) with his party ally Sinisa Karan (L) in Banja Luka, November 2025. Photo: EPA/NIDAL SALJIC.
The unprecedented fines imposed this week by Bosnia’s Central Election Commission won’t stop ruling parties from exploiting state resources to secure votes, Dario Jovanovic, project manager of the fair-elections campaign group Pod Lupom, told BIRN on Friday.
“Parties in Bosnia view these fines as a minor, predictable cost of doing business,” Jovanovic said. “When a ruling party controls millions in public budgets, a few thousand euros will not stop them from exploiting state resources to secure votes.”
The state Election Commission imposed unprecedented penalties exceeding 100,000 euros during a single session in Sarajevo on Thursday, heavily targeting major political entities for premature campaigning and abusing public resources ahead of the polls on October 4.
The primary target of Election Commission’s sanctions was the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats, SNSD, the Bosnian Serb ruling party led by Milorad Dodik.
The SNSD, which holds power in Bosnia’s Serb-led entity, Republika Srpska, was directly fined about 41,900 euros, while individual sanctions against its candidates brought the party’s total penalty to 52,700 euros, effectively accounting for over half of the entire session’s fines.
The regulatory body cited multiple severe violations of Bosnia’s Election Law, focusing on the unlawful exploitation of public infrastructure projects for partisan gain and the illegal use of children for political marketing.
Dodik himself was personally fined around 4,600 euros over an Instagram post in which he took direct credit on behalf of his party for taxpayer-funded public works. A member of the state parliament, Sanja Vulic, was fined 4,100 euros for inaccurate media statements and premature campaigning during a television broadcast.
The financial sweep extended beyond the SNSD. The Drasko Stanivukovic – Safe Srpska Movement coalition received the second-highest cumulative penalty, of some 13,000 euros. Following the ruling, Stanivukovic, mayor of Banja Luka, the main city in Republika Srpska, criticised the decision.
“They are fining us simply for doing our jobs and presenting infrastructure projects to the citizens,” Stanivukovic stated to media. “These decisions are rigid and politically targeted to diminish our campaign visibility.”
Other penalised entities included the Social Democratic Party, SDP, which was fined 8,700 euros, and Nedeljko Stevandic’s United Srpska, at 7,200 euros.
Major political entities from Bosnia’s other entity, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, including the Party of Democratic Action, SDA and a five-party Croat coalition, were also hit with financial sanctions.
With voters set to elect the state’s tripartite Presidency and entity parliaments in less than three weeks, the watchdog’s latest financial targeting represents an aggressive institutional effort to enforce compliance in a highly polarized race.
