Home > 2 Organising the elections > SERBIA - Joint Recommendations on the Laws on Parliamentary, Presidential and Local Elections and Electoral Administration
 
 
 
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Paragraph 48
 
48.  Article 10 of the law foresees that 20 per cent of the approved sum to cover campaign expenses is to be equally divided among all the registered candidates, with the remaining 80 per cent going to the winner of the seat(s). One evident shortcoming of the law is that it makes no distinction between allocation of funds for an election under the proportional system (i.e. parliamentary or municipal assembly) or a majoritarian system, such as a Presidential election. In fact, Article 10 would appear to be designed entirely for the proportional system, allocating the greater share of the funds to political parties that succeed in winning seats in an election. There is a large disparity in the case of a Presidential election, where only 20 per cent is distributed among all participants and 80 per cent goes to the winning candidate. Furthermore, the losing candidate in a second round is further disadvantaged, having to incur more expenses than other unsuccessful first-round candidates who are allocated the same amount of funds.