Serbian ruling party spent more than all others on election campaigns

Srpska napredna stranka, SNS, glavni odbor,
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The ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) spent more than all other parties combined on campaigns for parliamentary and presidential elections in the past 9 years.

The SNS spent 3,193,790,511 Dinars (1 Euro – 118 Dinars) on campaigns compared to 3,045,678,436 Dinars spent by all other political parties. According to Anti-Corruption Agency data, the SNS spent more than 2.5 billion Dinars on media advertising alone, 585 million more than all other parties.

The SNS spent almost a billion Dinars on campaigning for the 2014 parliamentary elections, the first after they came to power, which was about 150 million less than all other parties. Its campaign fund totaled 944,204,005 Dinars more than three times the money spent in 2012. Public funds accounted for 432 million Dinars of the total, individual donations about 111 million and donations from companies about half a million. The remaining 400 million Dinars came from loans.

The Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS – one of the parties in the ruling coalition) came in second spending a little more than 340 million Dinars on a campaign while others spent about half of that amount or less.

The SNS spent 771.5 million Dinarsa on the 2016 parliament election campaign, the SPS spent 359 million with only the Serbian Radical Party (SRS) managing to collect more than 100 million Dinars. The SNS got 262 million in public funds for that campaign while individual donations dropped to 680,000 Dinars. Companies donated five million and just one loan accounted for 150 million. The remaining 351 million were secured from party funds.

The SNS spent the most money campaigning for the 2017 presidential elections – 800 million Dinars compared to 520 spent by all other candidates. According the Anti-Corruption Agency data about 51 percent of the money came from public funds, some 35 percent from donations and 14 percent from party funds.

The least money was spent on the 2020 parliamentary elections, mainly because the opposition boycotted the vote, totaling almost 700 million Dinars in campaign funds.