There are No Cinderellas

Our politicians can hardly be differentiated from one another in the kind of lifestyles they enjoy: by and large they wake up with the singing of birds in any number of luxurious villas around Belgrade. After that, they ease into any one of the newest models of Mercedes, Audi or BMW (which are not theirs), from where they head straight to countless appointments, meetings, rallies, rendezvous, lunches, commemorative openings, dinners...

It’s as if in recent days the public has begun to consider the extent of the personal property holdings of top politicians — in particular, of presidential candidates. Nebojsa Covic made public the short list of his property holdings. He has an apartment in the Belgrade Suburb of Cukarica, measuring 140 square meters with 55 square meters of parking, storage and basement space. He was given this apartment by the Factory of Metal Products, and had bought the property deed for the apartment in 1990. He, his wife and two kids get by only on salaries. Virtually at the same time, the weekly Nedeljni Telegraf challenged other presidential candidates to declare "what they’re worth". The challenge was answered by Milan Paroski and Zoran Lilic. Paroski declared two small farms (25 hectares in all), a two and a half bedroom apartment in Novi Sad, a house in his hometown of Turija, and a cottage on the Fisherman’s Island. The President of the People’s Party is also a proud owner of two tractors with all necessary requisites, and of forty head of cattle. Lilic’s property holdings are considerably smaller. They include a part of a house and a yard measuring 6 acres in Brza Palanka, his family inheritance, and an apartment in Belgrade (it is not stated in Lilic’s property declaration, but the apartment measures 76 square meters and is located somewhere in New Belgrade). Lilic also declared his bank accounts. Two saving accounts, one in his name, the other in his wife’s, and one foreign currency account. It is stated that both accounts are with Beobanka, but their balances have not been declared.

DANGEROUS RUMORS: It is said that Vuk Draskovic forbade his Elections Headquarters to distribute such information. Many consider this move a minus, but what did we actually learn about candidates who on this occasion answered the Nedeljni Telegraf challenge? In other countries it is fairly common for presidential and parliamentary candidates to declare their property holdings, and the purpose of this is to allow the voters to see at the end of candidates’ mandates whether they did or did not cash in on the positions they occupied; and if they did, how they did, and by how much. In those countries, politicians try very hard to declare every penny, just so that they can avoid the eventual unpleasantness of having to answer some malicious moles who might decide afer three or four years to look into their finances and to find undeclared income. Here, property declaration does not nearly carry with it such long-term ramifications. No one outside the circles of power can have any way of actually establishing the extent of someone’s wealth. It is difficult to even imagine what the risk of such investigation might carry with it. That is why our presidential candidates, in the best of cases, declare their personal property of their own accord, if they think that by doing so their chances of getting elected will increase.

When they speak about their wealth, our politicians generally strive to appear modest. They can well afford the luxury of such appearances, not only because no one has the ability, interest, or courage to contradict them, but above all because official declaration of personal property is of relatively little consequence by comparison with the material wealth our politicians can amass by exploiting their public offices. In better times, public office here carried with it privileges which included the use of publicly owned villas, apartments, limousines, as well as shopping privileges in exclusive stores. The only permanent gain our politicians of yesterday could count on was through presents, loans, and, God forbid, embezzlement and malversation. As we are presently in a transitional period toward a society in which making money is both normal and legal, the Socialists think it quite apt to combine both the old and new economic principles. They purchased the property deeds of "their" huge publicly owned apartments and even villas (very cheaply, just like all other citizens), but public offices still continue to carry with them the privileges of official residences. A publicly owned limousine with a chauffeur is a must. For instance, only recently the Government of Serbia purchased ten Audi 8 limousines at a cost of 430,000 DEM per vehicle. It’s true that the cars were paid three times more than what this model usually costs, but that is why they have extra features such as bullet-proof glass and body, two air conditioners, a TV and a video. If we add to that exclusive resorts, publicly owned airplanes and yachts, hospital apartments, exclusive restaurants in parliament, official lunches, dinners, and God knows what else, money becomes meaningless because the high life is for free. All the same, times are changing so that it’s worth thinking about real cash. Unfortunately, public office salaries are at the same level as average salaries, which could not be multiplied even by a factor of eight. All in all, with various bonuses and increases, that amounts to nothing more than a measly little 3,000 dinars per month. However, "those who do not live from their work, but have other sources of income, will be forced to work and to contribute to their country", promised Lilic last Monday, while speaking in Kragujevac. In other words, everyone can be a general manager of something, and the financial opportunities in that are far greater, especially when we are talking about big, "successful", monopolistic enterprises such as the Railways, Progress, Jugopetrol, Sartid, Simpo... There, salaries in the tens of thousands of dinars are not uncommon, along with perks such as at least one limousine, and not infrequently (again) a villa, to boot. CIP Railways Institute alone has two villas in Uzicka St. Even so, with all that, monthly earnings will hardly amount to ten thousand German marks, which, you will agree, is little by world standards. However, every one of these giant enterprises has a Board of Directors which must have enough members. Membership on Boards is paid for with earnings in the tens of thousands of dinars. Board meetings are not held every day, and there are no legal limitations, so that it is possible to be a member of five, even six Boards of Executives at the same time. To have a powerful politician on the Board of Directors is something every enterprise can profit from.

THREE FENCES: As always, there is an exception — Zoran Lilic. This universal political panacea of a politician truly has modest property holdings. His name never came up in any embezzlement affairs, so that the regime’s press touted the fact that they have a man in the top position (!) who is untouchable by the opposition’s press because he "did not get rich". But it is also undebatable that the guardian of the throne decidedly inclines to the left. It is true, he did resign from profitable industrial jobs which were at odds with the political offices he assumed. When he became President of the Parliament of Serbia, he resigned from his position of Director of the Rekord Factory in Rakovica. However, he did not leave this enterprise in Rakovica entirely unprotected, but took on the responsible position of President of its Board of Directors. He helped out the Belgrade Airport with his membership in its Board of Directors. He was also a member of Belgrade’s Chamber of Commerce and of the Machine Engineering Faculty Council. He had to resign from all of these positions in order to assume the office of President of Yugoslavia. Nor does the office of President of Serbia permit him to take on lucrative jobs elsewhere. However, not even Lilic is a Cinderella. Even though it happened months after his inauguration, Lilic did more into a 450 square meter house in Belgrade’s Mir Boulevard. It is true that last year he gave up that only to move back to 15 Uzicka St., but he did it only so as to create a precedent from which someone else would reap political benefits. These days, in a quiet street in the Belgrade suburb of Senjak the renovations of a villa are reaching completion. They say that the fence alone had been changed three times. The renovations were supervised by numerous glib faced security personnel (described thus by bystanders) and by Mrs. Lilic. Given Zoran Lilic’s recent political rhetoric, it would be small surprise if the renovations cost considerably exceeded thirty thousand German marks, which is the amount spent on the renovation of his last residence. "Our objective is to follow the road to prosperity", stated Lilic at a rally in Zrenjanin.

ALL WE HAVE IS DANICA: The wealth of our opposition truly pales by comparison. Nebojsa Covic can boast of a modest financial status, because ever since resigning from SPS, he only has FMP to fall back on. The Draskovic family owns an eighty square meter apartment in Labudovo Brdo. Their villa in Kosutnjak, it is said, is only rented. Beside that, the Draskovics are owners of the Srpska Rec publishing house and press agency, which had the good fortune of renting a Community local on the corner of Cika Ljubina and Zmaj Jovina Streets, so that the offices of Srpska Rec lie close to Party Headquarters in Knez Mihajlova Street. However, their wealth comes from well known sources. Vuk Draskovic sold many of his books. It is thus all the more surprising why Danica Draskovic prefers to leave unanswered questions, refusing to make any statements on this subject in her interview with VREME. "Just write that Vuk Draskovic’s most valuable property, and his only property is his wife Danica," she said. Since Srpska Rec is footing the bill for the greater part of their considerable campaign costs, it seems that their big ambitions threaten to lead them into bankruptcy.

Vojislav Seselj lives in a modest family home in Batajnica. He bought it after a successful series of lectures held for Serbian immigrants in America in 1989, after which, according to press reports, he returned with an income of 300,000 U.S. dollars. That the figure is true is testified to by Seselj’s statements regarding his disagreement with best man Draskovic, one year later. Seselj was peeved at the disappearance of 35,000 dollars which he, Draskovic and Milan Komnenic earned in their 11 American lectures. There were rumors that Seselj quite ingeniously charged for candidate nominations for his party in the 1992 election — anywhere from 100 to 200 thousand German marks, depending of balloting status. He personally stated later that some members did offer donations, but that those donations never exceeded 30,000 DEM. The stories of gasoline smuggling and of machinations by the Velika Srbija enterprise, which was founded by SRS, continue to circulate in the press, but as always, without any hard evidence.

Those who are choosing not to participate in these elections also do not present a clearer picture. Ph.D. Zoran Djindjic, President of the Democratic Party (DS), was the first among the opposition leaders to go public with a list of his personal property. Djindjic declared a four bedroom apartment near Studentski Trg, measuring 150 square meters, which he bought with money he received from the sale of two apartments he owned prior to the founding of DS; 140,000 DEM of term deposits in a German bank; and 150 shares in Coca-Cola which he purchased with 450 DEM. He sold his BMW upon returning to Belgrade. He lives only from interest on his term deposits. Since Ph.D. Djindjic claims to not own any kind of company, neither here or outside, than all rumors about his joint ownership of Dibek Company, managed by Milan Beko, Minister for Property Transformation, and his interest in the trade of prophylactics would have to be wrong. However, does a politician of such stature have to own a registered company in order to cash in on his influence? "Politics is a job, like any other", Djindjic says.

Many rumors, little evidence. Despite that, all who had any dealings with government influence can testify to the fact that all public officials try to increase their "inadequately" paid service and to thus financially justify their positions. Seselj is auctioning off Zemun without any criteria. In every city in which they hold power, SPO and DS quarrel over who got more "lucrative" political offices. While in SPO, nepotism is rampant, with Mrs. Danica’s brother Veselin Boskovic simply having to get a cushy job somewhere. First he was Director of the Committee for Construction and City Planing in the Community of Savski Venac, and now he is Director of the Belgrade Committee for Urban Property. As for the Socialists... Their top politicians are more or less "clean", but we cannot forget that that is their most important political function.

While we worriedly watch them as they froth in the limelight, arguing and debating vital issues and thus attracting all attention to themselves, someone sneaks up behind us and steals our wallet. All we are left with is the question: "How could it have happened?"

Real Real-estate

Zoran Lilic: Apartment, New Belgrade, 76 square meters; part of a house and 6 ares of land, Brza Palanka

Vuk Draskovic: Apartment, Labudovo Brdo, around 80 square meters (?)

Vojislav Seselj: House, Batajnica, unknown dimensions

Nebojsa Covic: Apartment, Cukarica, 140+55 square meters

Zoran Djindjic: Apartment, Studentski Trg, 150 square meters

Milan Paroski: Apartment, Novi Sad, two bedroom; house, Turija, 25 hectares