Asaf Eisin, Israeli politician propagandist which one Aleksandar Vučić has been collaborating with for more than two decades and whom Vučić calls a "friend", he worked on a strategic media campaign for Rio Tinto in the midst of the largest protests against the Jadar project in 2021, despite the fact that the company's internal report cited his closeness to Vučić as a potential problem for hiring the Israeli, BIRN reveals.
in the summer of 2021, when citizens' dissatisfaction with the Jadar project began to spill over into the streets, the mining company Rio Tinto decided to hire a man who had shaped Aleksandar Vučić's political messages for years.
His name is Asaf Eisin - an Israeli propaganda expert and longtime Vučić's adviser, whom the president publicly calls a "friend".
Eisin has been present in the political life of Serbia for more than two decades. "Eisin has been my friend for almost a decade," Vučić said back in 2012, when he was the deputy president of SNS. "He helped me then (elections in Belgrade in 2004), he helps us now and he will always help us," said Vučić, then the deputy of SNS president Tomislav Nikolić.
Election success
Eisin's work proved to be fruitful for the SNS because in 2012 the party won the most votes in the parliamentary elections and took over the power it has held for 13 years.
When in August 2021 Rio Tinto's lithium mining plans accelerated and public discontent began to grow, Rio Sava, the Serbian subsidiary of Rio Tinto, turned to Eisin's firm "ESBR Consulting" from Israel, BIRN has learned. The contract, signed for six months - from August 17, 2021 to January 17, 2022 - provided for a fixed fee of 310.000 euros, while the costs of promotional materials for the campaign would be paid separately, all in a maximum value of up to half a million euros.
The task of Eisin and his team was clear: to design and organize a campaign that would improve the image of the company and the Jadar project itself. According to documents obtained by BIRN, Eisin's agency was supposed to design and lead a strategic campaign for Rio Tinto, which included public opinion research, production of TV spots and other communication materials.
BIRN reveals that Rio Tinto was aware of Eisin's closeness to the Serbian president. In the report on compliance with internal employment procedures, which the company requested before signing the contract, it is stated that this very relationship was marked as a risk.
"Asaf Eisin has been identified as a potential official in the government in accordance with the Business Integrity Procedure, given that he is allegedly a close associate of Aleksandar Vučić, the current president of Serbia," reads a company document that BIRN had access to.
However, this did not deter the company from hiring Eisin, despite the fact that President Vučić himself, the most powerful figure in the country, is known for his official support for the Jadar project.
In the months leading up to Eisin's appointment, Rio Tinto was trying to understand why public resistance was growing. BIRN reveals that the company commissioned a survey and analysis from the agency Ipsos Strategic Marketing which was completed in April 2021 and which BIRN had access to. The analysis states that the citizens of Serbia, primarily in Loznica and Krupnja, are more informed about the project, but also more skeptical than in 2018, when the previous analysis was done.
Inflamed area
The authors of the report recommended that the image of the project could be helped by the "more active and frequent involvement" of the then Minister of Mining and Energy Zorana Mihajlović, Minister of Environmental Protection Irene Vujović, as well as President Vučić himself - whose "appearance in the ``burning area'' would help remove some of the mistrust and skepticism among the local population."
Rio Tinto confirmed to BIRN that it hired Eisin, stating that they "invited different bidders to participate in the competition for the creation of a brand campaign" in response to the "disinformation campaign against the project in Serbia."
"As a result of this competitive process, the company decided to hire ESBR Consulting for the creation of a brand campaign that included public opinion research, the creation of a TV spot and communication materials," they stated in a written response, emphasizing that these contests do not have a legal obligation to be public.
When asked about the issue of Eisin and Vučić's closeness, the company only added that all suppliers "are subject to clearly defined rules and processes", in accordance with the Code of Conduct for suppliers, business integrity standards and "The Way We Work" business principles.
As a subcontractor of Eisin's agency, the Belgrade-based marketing firm Executive Group, which already worked for Rio Tinto years before, even after the end of Eisin's engagement, appears.
When asked why the subcontractor is a company that already works for Rio Tinto, the company briefly states that "the decision to hire a subcontractor is solely within the competence of the engaged company", i.e. ESBR Consulting.
Transparency Serbia program director Nemanja Nenadić tells BIRN that the engagement of the Israeli firm is not disputed, provided that the money payments were related to those services, but states that there are reasons to doubt it.
"Although it has been reported many times that Asaf Eisin worked on the election campaigns of the ruling party, the name of his company is not mentioned among the service providers for the campaign. Information was published in the media that he was engaged during the 2020 and 2022 elections, which are close in time to this engagement by Rio Tinto," Nenadić points out for BIRN.
"In the absence of information on whether the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption even investigated the possible engagement of the Israeli company in the SNS campaigns and the source from which the consultants were paid, there is room for doubt that this contract could be related to the performance of work for the party," he emphasizes.
Asaf Eisin briefly replied to BIRN that he "does not comment on any of his work in the media".
Who is Asaf Eisin?
Asaf Eisin's affairs are mostly hidden from the public eye. For years, the media collected fragments of his involvement in order to form a business image of this mysterious marketing expert.
In his biography on the War Room website, which brings together various political advisers, it is stated that he has worked for as many as 20 heads of state on three continents, however, without specific details.
He is known to have worked with controversial Israeli political propagandist Tal Silberstein at one time, and both are associated with using aggressive and negative campaigns to benefit their clients.
Eisin has worked a lot in the Balkans - for years he has been considered one of the key political advisers of the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić. The Israeli campaigned for Vučić for mayor of Belgrade in 2004, he also worked on the presidential elections in 2008 for Boris Tadić, after which he returned to Vučić again. He worked for the SNS elections in 2012, when Vučić called Eisin "a friend for almost a decade" in an interview with Večernje Novosti. The media write that Eisin, together with other Israeli propagandists, advised Vučić and SNS in the following election cycles.
In 2015, Eisin worked as a campaign strategist for the current Israeli president Isak Herzog, in 2016 he worked for the Montenegrin Democratic Party of Socialists headed by Milo Đukanović, for the Social Democratic Party of Romania, and the media mention him as an adviser to Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama and an adviser to former Slovenian Prime Minister Mir Cerar.
Eisin is not Vučić's only Israeli advisor - Srulik Einhorn, an Israeli spin-doctor, resides in Belgrade where he runs a consulting firm and where he worked as an advisor to Vučić, which BIRN wrote about.
Among Eisin's few collaborators on the project with Rio Tinto is Shuki Shapiro, an Israeli political consultant who is also part of the team of political advisers working for War Room, where it is said that he also worked on political campaigns in Serbia.
Full text on this topic read on BIRN's portal
