The Golden Donkey Jumps

Svetozar Simovic, coordinator of the Yugoslav United Left (JUL) in Montenegro, recently held a press conference in Podgorica to fiercely protest the state’s intention to donate 200,000 DEM to every party that stands in elections. Simovic said at least 30 parties will run in the elections costing Montenegro six million DEM. He said that money would be better invested in factories that aren’t operating to get at least some workers back to their jobs.

The figure seems fantastic and at first glance it seems crazy to spend it on competition among political parties and their leaders.

After Simovic’s press conference JUL’s ratings might rise, although Montenegrin political leaders said the party stands no chance.

Simovic’s proposal is aimed at the people who think the existence of more than one party is an evil that costs a lot. It’s strange that the proposal came from a party which spends huge funds promoting itself and is considered one of the richest political groups in the country. JUL directorate members include the directors or owners of a number of companies and banks and that is just the visible tip of the financial iceberg. Evil tongues could ask why JUL doesn’t start spending its money to revive production.

The other possibility for JUL is to influence that change in the existing law on party organizing which allows the registration of parties with just 100 members. That turns multi-partyism into a farce and shares out the funds for their promotion among parties which couldn’t win votes even from their families.

The "wasting" of money for party activities is one of "the most serious" stories in any serious states. It says that the chances of any individual or collective political opinion must not be conditioned on financial power but only on the idea itself.

Here huge amounts of uncontrolled money flow into politics and the people who make the donations don’t do so out of the goodness of their hearts but in expectation of favors. Jezdimir Vasiljevic expected and got favors up to a point when he invested several hundred million DEM (he claims) into the election campaign for the SPS (who said he gave them just 200,000). Later when he was declared a crook, the SPS promised to repay the money.

That ruling party scandal changed nothing in the general environment of the Serbian political scene. We still know virtually nothing about who donates how much and when and what the people who get the money do later.

Zorica Radovic, an associate at the Belgrade Law Institute, said the investing of money in politics is a first rate question of democracy. When asked why the opposition rarely speaks up about money although there is ample reason to be unhappy with existing conditions, Radovic said: "In itself, the law regulating the field is not bad but obviously it isn’t being implemented and the public does not have any insight into what’s happening in the field of money and politics. I know there were several unsuccessful attempts by the opposition to raise the issue. I don’t have too much information on the financing of an individual party but I assume that one reason why everyone’s keeping quiet is that they all get funding in ways that have little to do with the law. They’re keeping quiet because some of them obviously have found ways to get money. What we see is much more than the state allocates them. Some of them, primarily the ones close to the authorities and not only them, start fitting into the overall system of corruption and risk giving the authorities cause to blackmail them. It seems the steps by some parties are conditioned by the people who finance them or else they tolerate their behavior," she said.

The law on financing parties precisely defines what can and can’t be done. It expressly bans funds from abroad, state bodies and companies in the country and allows up to 3% of overall annual income from anonymous donors.

Most party spokesmen here say the money they get from the budget isn’t enough to pay their phone bills. They can’t live off that money but there still hasn’t been any local party that has gone bankrupt and their activities have been expanding. Almost all the opposition parties denied that they own companies and claim that right is reserved for the SPS, JUL and New Democracy since only their companies can get import-export licenses and privileged positions on the market. Everyone else is targeted by the authorities all the time. Most parties didn’t mention the increasingly frequent practice by the authorities of blackmailing their donors and financiers into ending their aid to the opposition. Some donors have completely abandoned aid to parties, others changed sides and turned to parties that can do business and are not visited by the financial police.

Despite believing that many opposition parties don’t stick to the law, Radovic said any discussion of the issue has to start from the fact which is eldest. And that is the question of starting positions for the election race.

The Socialists, who inherited a huge part of the assets of the Yugoslav League of Communists (SKJ), got themselves into an incomparably more favorable position in advance and discounted all rules of behavior and party financing. Assessments voiced in 1990 said the SKJ left behind 94 million DEM in assets. Most of that, especially the thousands of square meters of exclusive office space, went to the SPS and SK-PJ.

"The only way to get everything in order is radical: taking property from the people who inherited it illegally. The Poles did that in 1990. Their parliament adopted a law taking all property away from the Polish Workers Party. That property was then nationalized. The party appealed to the constitutional court which confirmed parliament’s decision but issued a very interesting statement which showed the mood in the country. The statement said the property of the party was acquired illegally and immorally and that legal protection covers only property acquired legally. Only a similar solution could bring us to a point where all parties could operate normally and equally, Radovic said.