It is January 20th, a little after noon: in the old building of the Serbian Parliament, in Kralja Milana Street, the representatives of seven associations of journalists are coordinating on the candidates for REM Council members, with the secretary of the Parliamentary Committee for Culture and Information and her assistants present.
After the representative of the Independent Association of Journalists of Serbia (NUNS) remarked that the other six associations do not meet the requirements prescribed by law for proposers, retorts followed. The long explanation of the president of the Professional Association of Journalists of Serbia from Bujanovac about the reasons for the establishment and the "large influx of members in the past period" was interrupted at one point by the noise of the demonstrators. It was one of the protest columns of students, high school students and citizens that rolled through the capital in those days, and it caused silence in the small assembly hall. After the noise of whistles and trumpets faded away, the school principal from Bujanovac, an official of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party and more recently a journalist and founder of the journalist's association, regained his strength, and he, breaking the uncomfortable silence, continued with his tirade.
Then the representatives of the United Television Experts from Belgrade and the Association of Journalists of Vojvodina from Novi Sad claimed - which they previously signed in a statement to the Board under full material and criminal responsibility - that they have more than 300 members with paid membership fees. They added that journalists and media workers are flocking to their associations, that they are hyperactive in defending their profession and freedom of expression, that they are in the service of the people and the state, and that NUNS and similar organizations are unjustifiably underestimating them.
The NUNS representative warned them that they had signed a false membership statement, as evidenced by excerpts from public financial reports submitted to the Agency for Economic Registers: only one association reported income from membership fees, but not enough to fulfill the quota of at least 300, while the others had no income from membership fees, and "television experts" even put themselves on hiatus in the APR in the previous two years. The secretary of the Committee was also warned that the parliamentary service had to check whether the proposers meet the requirements prescribed by law and to report this to the members of parliament, members of the Committee.
The retired RTS presenter, the leader of the "television experts", responded and explained that they had recently reactivated and that due to the "stupid legal obligation on mandatory membership fees" they had to introduce a membership fee, but it is symbolic and amounts to one dinar. And not everyone has to pay for themselves, one can pay 300 for them. And just when he started to explain how independent and professional he and his colleagues are, the president of the Association of Journalists Niša interrupted him. "What are you justifying to him, who has been insulting and humiliating us for years. Let us vote and choose two candidates", she interrupted the discussion with the voice of a strict teacher, and the majority agreed that it was time to make a statement.
A few minutes later, the secretary of the Committee announced that Dejan Vuk Stanković and Petar Kočić each received six votes, and Snježana Milivojević and Mileva Mališić one each. Next up are the two candidates proposed by the aforementioned associations SANS, UTE, DNV and DNN, as well as the Professional Association of Journalists of Serbia (PROUNS) from Niš and the Association of Sports Journalists from Belgrade.
FIXED MATCH IN ADVANCED DIRECTION
This would be a modest dash for historical notebooks and studies, or shows, if someone deals with our time in detail, and there is every chance that many will study the decade in which the state was captured and the society was destroyed, with the simulation of democracy and the falsification of reality. One of the characters in the described episode is me, as a representative of NUNS, the character of a loser who is too loud and practically humiliated, despite the facts and the decisive articles of the Law on Electronic Media.
Then, as one of the two associations in Serbia - UNS and NUNS - which really fulfill the legal requirements for proposing candidates for the Council of REM and gather the majority of journalists and media workers, we failed, so to speak, already in the pre-qualifications. To make it clearer for you, the nine areas defined by the Law in the Council election procedure can be seen as nine qualification groups, which should produce two candidates each, from which the people's deputies choose one. NUNS candidates did not even enter the final stage, because the government (read: SNS) organized six associations, all of which can be classified as GONGOs (governmental non-governmental organizations), and they coordinated and proposed the same candidates, the already mentioned DV Stanković and P. Kočić. The Parliamentary Committee for Culture and Information, by the will of the progressive majority, accepted them as legitimate candidates, and accepted their candidates, despite the fact that they too do not meet the legal requirements.
This was more or less the case in other "qualification groups" - (1) independent institutions - ombudsman, commissioner for public information and commissioner for protection of equality, (2) accredited universities, (3) associations of electronic media publishers, (4) journalists' associations, (5) associations of film, stage and drama artists and composers' associations, (6) associations of citizens dealing with freedom of information, (7) associations for children's rights, (8) national councils of national minorities and (9) churches and religious communities.
The legislator's intention was to cover society as widely as possible and to reach the best candidates through an inclusive and democratic process, so that the political authorities would be left to choose between two good candidates - independent and expert. However, the government, in cooperation with powerful broadcasters, always controlled the election of the executive body of the Regulatory Body for Electronic Media, once RRA, now REM, and secured the majority, which was then reflected on the boards of directors, directors and editors-in-chief of public services, and which looked favorably on powerful and politically protected media owners. With the progressives, everything collapsed, even the somewhat functional REM; during their time, the REM Council practically became a sub-committee of SNS, which is suitable for the electronic media, and such is the vast majority, opening up space for them to run wild to their heart's content and normalize abnormal content - from obscure reality shows to bestial party propaganda.
The first procedure for the election of Council members confirmed that even before the "race" the progressive government was leading with 3:0, and here's how. In the field of religious communities, the Serbian Orthodox Church has primacy, and its top acts like a committee of the SNS, choosing candidates that way. Then, the current Commissioner for Information of Public Importance, and especially the Protector of Citizens, have demoted these independent institutions in recent years and, as expected, propose suitable candidates (then, and in the new procedure, they proposed Stevica Smederevac and Žarko Simović, both employees of REM, which disqualifies them as legal candidates) and can override the Commissioner for the Protection of Equality. And finally, the councils of national minorities, primarily the Hungarian, Croat and Bosniak minorities, which are under the control of SNS partners, also impose suitable and mostly unqualified candidates.
And in the remaining six "qualification groups" the government has "instruments", i.e. obedient associations and universities, to ensure passage for its own. Thus, in January, the representatives of the universities in Novi Sad and Pristina, as well as EDUCONS, Megatrend and Singidunum, outvoted the representative of the University of Arts, and in the area of the association of founders of electronic media, associations made up of media under the control of SNS, or as it is euphemistically said - media close to the ruling coalition, have the upper hand. With the outvoting of the journalists' associations, which we described at the beginning, it is already 6:0 for the government, and it seems that the progressives in the realization of the first public call gave way in three areas, so that one of the independent candidates could also pass to the Council of the REM and thus ensure the regularity of the process.
But that was the situation a few years ago, when after negotiations between the government and the opposition on election conditions, Vučić and SNS "let" Slobodan Cvejić and Judita Popović into the Council of REM. And then it was shown that the majority under the control of the progressives can amortize the influence of "disobedient" members, that is, to marginalize them to the extreme and make their every effort pointless, and that they be forced, as was the case with Cvejić, to withdraw.
LET'S START FROM THE BEGINNING
The first procedure for the election of the Council proved, as we assumed, that the government, that is, to be more clear - Aleksandar Vučić, will not cut the branch on which he is sitting, and the first steps in the repeated show the ruler's even greater ruthlessness and his intention not to leave any area to people who are not under his control.
Months of protests, as well as the withdrawal of seven of the 18 candidates who were "approved", stalled the process, and the student blockade of RTS eventually forced the regime to cancel the public call and announce a new one. Although few in NUNS and partner organizations believed that the election for the REM Council would be regular, we succumbed to the pressure of comrades from civil society and representatives of international organizations, primarily the Delegation of the European Union and the OSCE Mission, which have long been involved in media sector reforms. Last month, together with other independent proponents, we met the students and did not want to destroy the victory they won after the blockade, and the EU leaders in recent weeks conditioned the opening of Cluster 3 and the election of a new REM Council. But none of that forced the progressives to respect the laws and procedures, that is, to stop cheating and lying.
This time, the UNS sided with the NUNS, proposing the same candidates (Mileva Mališić and Đorđe Vlajić), but again associations were engaged that do not meet the legal requirements for proposers, this time only three, but quite enough to override the reconciliation. Two are from Niš - the Association of Journalists of Niš and PROUNS. One is headed by Danijela Ivanković, deputy chief and responsible editor of TV Zona plus from Niš, and the other by her colleague and chief editor Slađana Ostojić. Thus, two "journalists" from the media owned by the family of the Minister of Defense and high-ranking progressive Bratislava Gašić lead two "journalistic associations", which are quite enough - if one turns a blind eye to the legal provisions - to annul the two largest and only relevant associations at the national level. Interestingly, unlike the first public call, DNN now has income from membership fees in the financial report, in the amount of 1.044.000 dinars. This is all the income of this association last year, if the report is to be believed, although according to the information of the competent Ministry of Information and Telecommunications, last year they received exactly one million dinars in the competition for co-financing of media projects. Whether they overbooked that money and presented it as membership fees or otherwise falsified the report, are questions for professional services and members of the parliamentary committee, just as for other areas, hundreds of questions can be asked about the legitimacy of the proposer and candidate, and thus about the legality of the procedure.
But in a country with fake parties, fake electoral lists, fake doctorates, fake companies, fake students and all other forgeries, it is quite expected that we have a simulation of the democratic and inclusive election of members of the REM Council, in which fake associations and fake candidates win.
And it seems that the only thing that can disrupt such an abnormal order are protests and pressure from rebellious students and citizens. Consequently, at the end I return to the uncomfortable silence mentioned at the beginning of the text. Namely, while the roar of rebellious people was heard from the street, the arrogance and insolence of the progressive representatives disappeared, and when the noise passed - they continued as before. Our threats to withdraw from the process, nor our appeals to the domestic public and international observers, do not have much influence on the progressive machinery to falter in lies and fraud, and that is why the solution for returning the repeated process to the legal framework is self-imposed: for students and rebellious citizens to return to where they fought for the cancellation of the first public call for the election of REM Council members.
The author is the president of NUNS.
