Transparency: This campaign THE MOST EXPENSIVE since 2004

As program director of TS Nemanja Nenadic said, the campaign for the elections will cost the citizens of Serbia EUR 15.7 million from the budget, and this, as he said, „generous financing“ will result in higher costs, and the fact that participants will use other sources of financing less.

Nenadic explained that the new law on financing political activities was beneficial for those who had candidates for the parliament, but not for the presidential candidate, and they would get more money than if the old law had remained, Beta reports.

When it comes to investing in television advertising, the total value of the campaign, according to TS’s data, reached almost seven million euros, not including local media.

„The investment of the Serbian Progressive Party in TV advertising is identical to the percentage of support for the presidential candidate, about 60 percent. The SPS is second in terms of investments, with 15%, which may have had an impact on an unexpectedly good result,“ Nenadic said.

Most of the funds for advertising went to Pink TV

He added that this could not be said for the Radicals, who carried as much as a tenth of the costs of the overall television campaign and did not pass the threshold.

TS stated that the majority of advertising funds went to Pink TV, about 2.6 million euros, RTS about 1.8 million and Happy TV 1.2 million euros.

Namely, the report on the preliminary costs of the campaign is an obligation under the new law and parties have mostly fulfilled it.

Nevertheless, the reports were submitted just before the election silence, so, as stated, TS is analysing them only now.

TS’s legal advisor Robert Sepi said that the organization had so far submitted four reports on irregularities to the Anti Corruption Agency and that „the Agency has made an effort not to respond to any of them“, i.e. to  assess that there was no liability of SNS or current ministers.

Izvor: Beta

Foto: Beta/Milan Obradović