Transparency International: RS entity chopper used 7 times for election campaign

N1 / Arhiv

During 10 days of Bosnia's local election campaign, the helicopter owned by the Bosnian-Serb entity Republika Srpska (RS) flew to election rallies of the ruling Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) party in this entity, Transparency International in Bosnia and Herzegovina (TI BiH) warned, Fena news agency reported on Tuesday.

“Bosnian Serb Presidency member elected by voters from the RS, Milorad Dodik, used the RS Helicopter Service seven times during the election campaign, visiting election rallies” across the entity, TI BiH said.

According to them, Milorad Dodik appeared at at least seven SNSD election rallies whose place and time coincide with the destinations of W 119 helicopter flights.

Namely, the data from the portals flightradar24.com and flightaware.com, which record every flight, show that the RS Government helicopter flew mostly since the beginning of the campaign to destinations where the SNSD rallies were held, and the first in a row was held on October 18 in Srebrenica Bratunac and Milic, organized by that party.

The TI BiH warned that this is just one in a series of examples of misuse of public resources for party purposes recorded by this association through the monitoring of the election campaign period, and pointed out that the recent misuse of official vehicles for visiting party rallies was especially noticeable.

Therefore, the TI BiH has warned for years of the need for a more clear legal regulation of this matted and the introduction of the limitation of the use of public resources in party purposes and campaign promotion.