MANS will submit reports to the Agency for Prevention of Corruption (APC) against the Democratic Front (DF) because that coalition hid all expenses of political marketing on Pink M and Adria TV during the campaign for local elections.
In the official reports on campaign expenses, election lists of DF in Podgorica, Budva, Bar, Pljevlja and Plav did not report a single cent of advertising expenses on the mentioned TV channels.
However, during the election campaign, 237 pre-election commercials of the mentioned DF electoral lists were broadcast on Pink M television with a total duration of 11,220 seconds.
In addition, Adria TV aired 38 pre-election commercials of the DF lists from Podgorica and Budva with a total duration of 1,310 seconds.
Without a doubt, it is about hiding of tens of thousands of euros of political marketing expenses on these TV channels, but the exact amount cannot be determined, because their price lists and contracts with parties are not published on the APC’s website. Such practice was made possible by the APC itself by selectively interpreting the law in a way that drastically reduced the transparency of election campaign financing. Even though in the eve of the local elections that institution stated that they had formed a special working group to solve the issue, there have been no results.
The fact that APC did not ex officio determine that there were hidden expenses and did not initiate proceedings, once again confirms that this institution is neither ready, nor capable of ensuring compliance with the law and transparency of election financing.
In this way, the credibility and integrity of the electoral process in Montenegro is continuously threatened, political parties are put in an unequal position and the lack of transparency is abused. It is the actions of the APC that contribute to such environment, and the Agency’s selective and inconsistent decisions lead to a situation that results in individuals from other countries, in this case from Serbia, interfering in the electoral process in Montenegro.
Namely, Pink M television is part of the Pink Media Group owned by Željko Mitrović, a media mogul from Serbia, and Adria TV is majority owned by Bratislav Stojiljković, also a Serbian citizen, who was banned entry into Montenegro by the Ministry of the Interior in the eve of the local elections in October last year.
We expect that, based on our initiatives, the Agency will decide immediately, but also determine the responsibility of the employees of that institution which failed to identify the mentioned violations of the law.
MANS
