Political finance regulations Political and campaign finance was regulated comprehensively for the first time by the 2011 Political Finance Law,59 which was subsequently amended twice, first in 2014 and then in 2019 following agreement between the government and the opposition. This piece of legislation is governed by two principles: (1) openness, and (2) oversight. Openness involves the general availability of political finance information and data, whilst oversight requires the ACA to scrutinize parties’ financial statements, perform audits, and engage in field controls. Both principles have, however, faced numerous challenges in the past decade, and some of these tests, that have relevance to electoral dispute resolution, will be outlined below. The Corruption Prevention Agency, as it then was, scrutinized the first election in 2012; the 2020 poll was the fifth time it monitored the campaigns of all election contestants. The monitoring effort lasted from 6 March to 21 June, with an interruption during the state of emergency due to public health concerns. The total revenues and expenditures of all election stakeholders in the 2020 parliamentary, provincial, and local elections are presented in the ACA’s Campaign Finance Report.60 The total finance raised for the campaign totaled 1,373,831,981.06 dinars, whilst the expenditures totaled 1,379,426,336.40 dinars. Sixteen political groups raised more than they spent, whilst 13 expended more than they collected. Regulations require political entities that contest an election to submit campaign finance reports with the ACA within 30 days of the publication of final election results. In its report on the June 2020 elections, the ODIHR stated that ‘the campaign finance regulatory framework and its current implementation do not ensure transparency, integrity and accountability of campaign finance’ and that ‘[k]ey prior recommendations by ODIHR and the Council of Europe’s Group of States Against Corruption (GRECO) on campaign finance remain unaddressed, including introducing lower donation limits; an expenditure ceiling; financial reporting and disclosure prior to election day’.61 These recommendations are yet to be taken into consideration by decision-makers, and were not seriously discussed during the dialogue between government and opposition that ended in late 2019. Regulations governing abuse of public resources Abuse of public resources is governed not only in the Law on Prevention of Corruption and the Political Finance Law, but also in the Public Enterprises Law and the Education Law (both of which are significant given opposition parties’ criticisms over the use of public corporations and the education system to exert pressure on voters). Article 50 of the Law on Prevention of Corruption prohibits public officials from abusing public resources, public events and official meetings to promote political parties. One outcome of Political Finance Law, Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia, Nos. 43/2011, 123/2014, and 88/2019. Agencija za sprečavanje korupcije, Izveštaj o kontroli troškova izborne kampanje u 2020, mart 2021, available at acas.rs/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Izvestaj-verzija-V-Kampanja-konacno.pdf. 61 ODIHR Special Election Assessment Mission Final Report, Parliamentary Elections. 21 June 2020, available at osce.org/files/f/documents/a/3/466026.pdf. 59 60 40