CINS: How did Pink and Happy write off the million dollar debt to the radicals? – Society

A year and a half after he returned from The Hague, the radical leader Vojislav Seselj he led this party to another parliamentary election. It was 2016 and Seselj was aspiring for the post of prime minister. The election video that was broadcast on Pink and They are happy said – Vote for Seselj, let’s return Serbia to safe hands.

The total budget for advertising on these two televisions was more than 62 million dinars. Serbian Radical Party she paid almost none of this.

And not only that, nor advertising on Pink they did not pay for the presidential elections in 2017 and the Belgrade elections in 2018, so the entire debt grew to almost 100 million.

Center for Investigative Journalism of Serbia (CINS) reveals that this debt was never paid, but was Pink and Happy wrote off, which practically donated money to the radicals. Thereafter Agency for Prevention of Corruption initiated proceedings against the television.

In this way, in the last eight years, during the parliamentary, presidential and Belgrade election campaigns, the radicals “spent” more than 173 million more than what they had.

Vojislav Šešelj tells CINS that if there is money in the account, they pay the debt.

“Since we had nothing to pay with, let them wait for God to pay them.”

CINS research shows how the current system of financing political activities leads to non-transparency, hidden donations and party favoritism. The changes proposed by the government can make the situation even worse and cause millions of dollars in damage to the budget.

Nemanja Nenadic from Transparency Serbia says that the proposed changes do not include some of the more important problems in the field of party financing.

“These changes to the law, on the one hand, do not solve the problem of financial inequality of the participants in the election campaign, and on the other hand, they open a wider space for damage to the budget.”

Election lottery

All election participants receive money from the budget to finance their campaigns. First, they deposit a guarantee or guarantee, and then they receive a part – 40% – after Republic Election Commission declare their list. If they pass the census, they receive the rest of the money in accordance with the number of mandates won. If they do not win even 1% of the votes (minority lists 0.2%), then they must return the 40% they received.

That’s why most of the participants in the election are forced to “gamble” every time because they don’t know how much money they will get in the end, says the lawyer Vladimir Tupanjac.

“That’s actually our problem, that it’s a lottery.”

Judging by the debts they leave behind, some parties overcome this by spending more than they have because the consequences of such behavior are almost non-existent.

Debts for television advertising, for example, are not rare.

For example, the coalition gathered around Boris Tadić remained liable in 2022 Pink almost nine million, and They are happy about four and a half million dinars. She also had unpaid bills Nina media clippingwho claimed about 100 thousand dinars.

From Social democratic parties they tell CINS that there are still some debts and they will be settled “as soon as possible”.

Vojislav Šešelj, on the other hand, says that everyone shares the risk that the party may not pass the census.

“We and they (televisions) when we signed the contract, we thought that we would pass the screening for sure. However, when we did not pass the census – how can we pay? It is impossible”.

A particular problem is that the cost of campaign financing can only be paid from a special account opened for that purpose, but it must not be used after the election. The solution in such situations is for the person who provides the service to the election participant to try to forcefully collect this debt, so the money is then taken from the account for regular work. If there is one.

That’s how the coalition is Marinika Tepić – United for the victory of Serbia for the lease of advertising space in 2022, the remaining company owes Pramac advertising about 4.7 million dinars. As they told us from this company, this debt was forcibly collected.

However, Pink and Happy they did not initiate forced collection in the case of debts Serbian radical partiesthey have already written them off, so that’s it Agency for Prevention of Corruption filed a misdemeanor complaint against them. Against Happiness due to an illegal donation, a Pinky because he did not submit evidence of debt write-off at all.

Happy defended himself that their logic was that they would not be able to collect the debt, and that the initiation of court proceedings would only mean additional investments – court fees, lawyers, executors.

From Pinky and Happiness they did not answer the CINS journalist’s question regarding the write-off of these debts.

Despite the debts that the radicals did not pay for years, i Pink and Happy gave this party advertising space in subsequent campaigns, and they remained indebted to them again. This is the case, for example, in the last elections in December 2023. Happy issued advertising space to radicals worth almost 500 thousand dinars, but they were not paid for that either.

Vladimir Tupanjac says that this shows that there is no market logic behind such relations.

“Which is why a media that already has claims against a party, and has written off debts and the like, would constantly enter the same situation, unless there is some agreement behind it or some benefit obtained in another way”.

The professor and head of the media studies department also agrees with him Faculty of Philosophy in Novi Sad Smiljana Milinkov which tells CINS that it is a kind of affection for certain political options.

“It is an abuse in the sense that the payment is not even expected.”

Nemanja Nenadić from the organization Transparency Serbia believes that it would be illegal for the media to refuse advertising of a group due to previously unfulfilled obligations, because the media must provide exactly the same advertising conditions to all political subjects.

“With the existing legal norms, the only safe way for the media to collect their claims against the parties is advance payment.”

Space for abuse

This type of system allows the election participants to agree with someone to provide them with a service for free, i.e. to donate it, but to keep it in the papers as a debt. The public has no insight into whether they are paid in the end and in what way, and eventually finds out about it only if Agency decides to check them later.

In this way, the debts not only remain non-transparent, but also enable the favoring of certain election participants, explains Nenadić.

“It is arguable that some campaign participants were billed immediately, while others were allowed to do so later.”

The matter is further complicated by groups of citizens who do not have the status of a legal entity. For example, in 2018, a group of citizens gathered around Dragan Đilasowed more than 20 million dinars to the company Pramac advertising.

This company said that they were unable to collect the debt because the account is opened for a natural person and then cannot be enforced.

However, the proposed amendments to the Law on the Financing of Political Activities threaten to expand this problem. It will also allow groups of citizens to not provide the bond that is now mandatory in order to receive money from the campaign budget.

The changes were proposed by Government working groups for cooperation with the OSCEand based on ODIHR’s recommendations in order to improve election conditions.

In this way, groups of citizens or smaller parties could apply for elections only to receive money from the budget, and not to actually participate in the election race. For that, it will be easier for them because they will not have to post bail, and if they do not meet the threshold, it will be difficult to collect the money from them.

Transparency Serbia estimates that the damage to the budget can be more than one million euros for each election, that is, more than 200 thousand euros per group of citizens, coalition or party that does not pass the census, and does not have its own property to compensate for that money.

“Namely, by the nature of things, newly formed groups of citizens, and not even many political parties, have assets from which forced collection could be carried out.”

Vladimir Tupanjac says that the problem cannot be solved by even more restrictive regulations because they lead to money just going into gray or black streams.

“It is very difficult to prevent money from entering the campaign, even much more developed countries have not managed to do that.” It is more a matter of political culture than some regulations”.