Today, MANS submitted two initiatives to the Council of the Agency for Prevention of Corruption (APC) against the director of APC, Jelena Perović, for continuous violation of the Law on Financing of Political Entities and Election Campaigns.
The first initiative submitted to the Council concerns the conduct of APC in relation to the media that are allowed to illegally provide advertising services during the election campaign. From the beginning of the election campaign, MANS presented APC with very specific cases of violations of the law by certain media and continuously warned that the lack of timely reaction of the Agency would result in a complete derogation of the Law, which is what happened when it comes to political advertising.
At the very end of the election campaign, we have a situation where several media, including television, radio stations and portals, broadcast advertising political content completely unlawfully, which is a direct consequence of the fact that APC first accepted the price lists submitted after the legal deadline, and then completely passively observed political parties advertise freely in most of these media. In addition, all violations of the law related to the media were recognized by MANS itself, and reported in a timely manner to APC, which was, ex officio, the job of that institution.
The second initiative submitted to the Council refers to the documentation submitted to APC by the reporting entities of the Law on Financing of Political Entities and Election Campaigns, as well as to the minutes on their control that APC has conducted so far.
Namely, Article 5 of the Law prescribes the obligation of the Agency to make a report on the conducted controls and publish it on its website. In addition, the Law obliges APC to publish complete documentation submitted to it by state institutions on its website, which includes analytical cards, data on the use of machinery and equipment, data on social assistance payments, excerpts from the state treasury, travel orders and data on employment in the pre-election period.
However, only a part of the mentioned documentation was published on the APC’s website, while there are no records on the controls that APC conducted in the last two months of the election campaign.
Through this unlawful practice, APC directly contributes to reducing the transparency of election campaign financing, significantly limits the ability of civil society and the media to monitor and control its work, and ultimately prevents the detection of possible abuse of state funds in the election campaign.
MANS expects an urgent response from the Council on initiatives taken against the Director of APC, to prevent further violations of the law with far greater consequences.
MANS
