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22. 03. 2014

CAMPAIGN COST - 13 MILION EUR

22.3.2014 (Večernje novosti; By N.P.) - ORGANIZATION "TRANSPARENCY SERBIA" ESTIMATED THE COSTS OF THE ELECTION PROMOTION OF POLITICAL PARTIES ON TELEVISION STATIONS AND ON BILLBOARDS.

The campaign for early parliamentary and Belgrade elections cost political parties more than 13 million EUR, estimated "Transparency Serbia".

This amount of money, according to the rough calculation by "Transparency Serbia", went to television advertising and renting billboards in Belgrade, not including other expenses that parties had during the promotion.

The data obtained by "Transparency Serbia" show that the parties spent more than 11 million EUR only for broadcasting TV spots, based on official price lists and calculated discounts.

The biggest share of this amount was given by the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) - almost 5 million EUR. The next in line is the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) which spent almost 1.7 million EUR, followed by the United Regions of Serbia (URS) which gave more than 1.3 million to TV stations. More than one million EUR was given also by the Liberal-Democratic Party (LDP). Somewhat below this limit was the block led by Boris Tadić. Democratic Party (DS) and Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) spent half a million each, and the list "It was Enough" of Saša Radulović spent 74.000 EUR.

Program Director of "Transparency Serbia" Nemanja Nenadić said that TV advertising is by far the most expensive form of promotion:

- As for billboards, there were around 30% of political ones at the start of the campaign, and later more than 70%.

During four campaign weeks, the biggest political parties spent 2.2 million EUR for renting billboards in Belgrade. The coalition around SPS gave the most money towards this type of promotion - almost a half million EUR.

The second were the SNS - 447.050 EUR, and the third LDP with 349.541 EUR. For advertising on billboards in the capital DSS spent 252.241 EUR, URS 30.000 EUR, the New Democratic Party (NDS) paid 197.318 EUR, and DS 132.265 EUR.

Fair Elections, Suspicious Financing

Director of "Transparency Serbia" Vladimir Goati assessed the latest parliamentary elections in Serbia as fair and free, just like every elections after year 2000, but he added:

- It is not good that no one so far has been validly sentenced for criminal acts defined by the laws on party financing. Based on this, one could think that this is the cleanest domain.