Nemanja Nenadić from Transparency Serbia says that nobody is monitoring the electoral campaign of Serbian officials, and that are entering the upcoming elections with no restrictions on the expenditure of state bodies.
Nenadić says that “the law was amended just before the election was called.”
“A limit has been introduced on campaign expenditure – six million euros per political entity. We commented that this was too high compared to other comparable countries; ODIHR said that it was too high and that there are no deterrent sanctions for breaking that rule,” he says.
That level, he adds, has so far only been reached by the coalition around the SNS.
“Since 2016, we have had a marked centralisation of financial power, where the ruling coalition practically reports as much expenditure as all the others combined, while at the same time there is serious suspicion that there are other resources being used for the campaign. Most of that money comes from the budget in one way or another,” he says.
He specified that “six million euros is the limit on how much a single party is allowed to spend on elections from any source whatsoever.”
“In practice, we see that when financial reports are read, the money reported is the least controversial part – the money coming directly or indirectly from the budget, where parliamentary parties can pump in some of the money they received for financing their regular work. This results in a situation where the citizens of Serbia are practically paying parties to persuade them to vote for them; that is deeply absurd,” says Nenadić.
He also explains that all participants will receive a certain amount.
“It depends on the number of lists; it can go up to 500,000 euros. Part of the money is distributed in advance to everyone in equal shares, and part is received after the elections according to the number of seats won. Each seat brings in about 30,000 euros, a little bit more,” he says.
He also points out that we entered these elections without any restrictions on the expenditure of state bodies.
“Where a budget rebalance provided nearly a billion euros for those purposes, we call that the squandering of public resources or the buying of voters’ will, creating certain preconditions for an officials’ campaign, where the money of Serbia’s citizens is distributed, and then public officials travel around Serbia explaining how wonderful it is what they have done for the citizens,” says Nenadić.
Why do state officials carry out an election campaign?
According to him, an officials’ campaign is a way for parties in power to get something worth more than any advertisement.
“To be on the RTS evening news for five or ten minutes, that is worth more than five or ten minutes of adverts. That is why the officials’ campaign is carried out, where they invent all sorts of pretexts to be present in the public eye even though it is not a matter of fulfilling any of their duties whatsoever,” he says.
To the question of whether anyone is monitoring the officials’ campaign, he answers in the negative.
“The Agency for the Prevention of Corruption should be monitoring it, but no data has been published that would show they are actually doing so,” he says.
(N1, 29.09.2026)