- Although it is expressly prohibited by the law, the campaign of presidential candidate Andrija Mandić was supported by two NGOs with 40 thousand euros;
- One of the donors to the campaign of the elected president Jakov Milatović received jobs from the state in the previous period, which makes this donation a violation of regulations on the financing of election campaigns;
- Presidential campaign of the DPS’ candidate, Milo Đukanović, was once again financed by natural persons who received social assistance in the previous period, which is part of the scheme for injecting money from unknown origin into the electoral process, which MANS discovered during previous election cycles.
Analysis of data on donations received by candidates during the previous presidential campaign revealed numerous suspicions of violations of the Law on Financing Political Parties and Election Campaigns, as well as the continuation of the passive attitude that the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (APC) has towards the supervision of the implementation of this law.
The candidate for the President of Montenegro and the leader of the New Serb Democracy (NSD), Andrija Mandić, collected nearly 88 thousand euros in donations during the election campaign. Of that amount, nearly half was donated contrary to the Law on the Financing of Political Parties and Election Campaigns, which expressly prohibits non-governmental organizations from donating to political entities.
However, Mandić received two donations of 20,000 euros each from the NGOs “Society for Equality and Tolerance” and “Society for the Promotion of Political, Cultural and Economic Cooperation of Montenegro, the Republic of Serbia and the Republic of Srpska”. This type of donation is prohibited by Article 33 of the aforementioned law, which stipulates that non-governmental organizations are prohibited from donating to political entities.
The NGO “Society for Equality and Tolerance” has thus far been generously financed from the state Fund for the Protection and Realization of Minority Rights of Montenegro, from which it received over 1.1 million euros in the period from 2009 to 2017. In addition to Montenegro, this NGO also received money in previous years at competitions organized by the Republic of Serbia, i.e. their Directorate for Cooperation with the Diaspora and Serbs in the Region. This organization is also the founder of TV station “Srpska TV” in Montenegro.
Another NGO that supported Mandić’s campaign with 20 thousand euros was founded in 2019 in Podgorica, and one of its founders is Vladislav Bojović, a former representative of the Democratic Front in the Parliament of Montenegro, and the current acting Director General of the Directorate for Payments of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and Water Management of Montenegro.
According to the available data, this organization has not received funds from the Montenegrin Fund or the Serbian Directorate for Diaspora until now. Data from available financial reports for 2021 and 2022 show that this organization had no officially reported income.
The founder of this NGO, Vladislav Bojović, is also one of the owners of “Serb House”, which also helped Andrija Mandić’s campaign with 20 thousand euros.
In the records on the conducted controls of political entities during the 2023 presidential election campaign, there is no evidence that the Agency for Prevention of Corruption (APC) noted or sanctioned this violation of the law. In the coming days, MANS will submit an official initiative to APC to initiate proceedings due to suspicions that the Law on Financing of Political Entities and Election Campaigns has been violated.
Apart from the mentioned donations, Mandić also financed his campaign with 10 thousand euros donated by the Democratic People’s Party (DNP), five thousand euros paid by his NSD, and three thousand euros given by the Workers’ Party. Mandić reported that he had received four services worth nearly 10,000 euros, from the companies “Mediteran Express” and “Mediteran Travel”.
Milatović’s campaign supported by a private company against the law
One of the companies that supported the campaign of the elected president, Jakov Milatović, received several state jobs in the last three years, which is why it was not allowed to participate in the financing of political entities in any way.
Namely, in the last two years, the company “Centroslavija”, which supported the campaign of the candidate “Europe Now” with the amount of 1000 euros, participated in several tenders announced by state authorities and contracted jobs worth close to half a million euros.
Article 33 of the Law on the Financing of Political Entities and Election Campaigns prescribes a ban on financing for legal entities and natural persons connected to them if, among other things, they concluded a contract with state authorities through the public procurement procedure in the last two years.
Similar to the case of the candidate Andrija Mandić, there is no evidence that the APC controlled the financing of the campaign of Jakov Milatović, which is why MANS will also send an initiative to this institution in this case, due to the suspicion that the provisions of the Law on the Financing of Political Entities and Election Campaigns have been violated.
Đukanović was again massively supported by party officials, but also by “charity cases”
The most donations for the previous presidential elections were collected by the current President of Montenegro, Milo Đukanović, a little over 210 thousand euros. A smaller part of that money was paid by his party DPS (13,300 euros), while the rest, at least officially, came from the pockets of officials, members and supporters of this party.
The scheme that high-ranking public officials, as well as employees of public companies, help the election campaigns of Đukanović and his party in sync, was discovered by MANS during the 2016 and 2020 parliamentary elections. The practice of former “social assistance users” generously helping the DPS campaign was also recorded during these presidential elections, thus, MANS again registered several examples of these persons paying thousands and hundreds of euros, despite their “difficult financial situation”.
None of the identified and reported cases of suspicious financing of political parties and their campaigns has been adequately processed by the competent Special State Prosecutor’s Office.
Investigative Centre
MANS
