The contents of the 8th number of Ljubljana newsletter the inhabitants of the Slovenian capital have recently found in their mailboxes has rather upset some of the Slovenian political entities, both left- and right wing.
Interviews with all the highest ranking officials of "the most beautiful city in the world" can be found in the newsletter, and other individuals of importance from the municipality have been presented. A number of them are candidates on the list of the present mayor Zoran Janković.
The Solidarity party has announced a criminal complaint for abuse of position for the purpose of pre-election promotion. They also intend to file an initiative to the anti-corruption commission for suspicion of corruptive actions, and misuse of public funds.
The Ljubljana section of NSi Party warned that "the money belonging to the inhabitants of Ljubljana has been again misused." "The cost should be settled by the candidate for mayor Jankovič, and his list," they wrote in their press release, in which they also warned about the alleged misuse of function by the editor-in-chief of Ljubljana Newsletter, Nada Šumi.
Before the beginning of the pre-election campaign she had supposedly assured to their representatives that only one number of the Ljubljana Newsletter would be published, as a special pre-election number, including only the list of names of candidates, including the names of candidates for the mayor and city and quarter councillors, which was in fact realized.
"When we enquired whether the present councillors, candidates for the mayor, and city and quarter councillors would have the opportunity to introduce themselves, she told us that that would not be possible, as no other pre-election number of the journal would be published," NSi Party Ljubljana claims, and call on anti-corruption commission, Integriteta Society, and the Court of Auditors to "give their public statements on such inadmissible actions by mayor Janković, and unequal treatment of the remaining councillors of the City municipality of Ljubljana MOL."
We asked the editor of Ljubljana Newsletter Nada Šumi for her comment. At first she refused to comment on the matter, saying that the MOL protocol demands all the questions should be addressed to the section for public relations. Afterwards we have received her explanations in which she explains, among other things, that within the programme scheme of the Ljubljana Newsletter to "inform through this municipality medium the citizens of the projects and programmes of the city administration executed with the funds from the city budget, public-private partnership and donations".
"Considering the novelties from both mandates of the mayor Zoran Janković, and the number of non-governmental organisations from the field of healthcare, social welfare, education, sport and culture financed by MOL during that time, any reader of the Ljubljana Newsletter can see for himself/herself that practically all the numbers of the newsletter during his mandate have been understood as »pre-electional«, as they are regularly reporting on exceptional work from all the fields," Šumi wrote.
According to her explanation the Ljubljana Newsletter, as the medium of the Slovenian capital, has been trying to keep a respectful dialogue and wishes to contribute to the high culture of public speech both within the local society, and wider, within the Slovenian public space.
Grey-zone area
The alleged misuse of the Ljubljana Newsletter for promotional intentions is being inspected by the non-governmental researchers and supervisors of corruption in Slovenia, Transparency International Slovenia – Integriteta Society which are on the lookout for irregularities at this year's local elections as a part of the project Transparency of local elections in Middle and Eastern Europe.
Vid Doria, General Secretary of Integriteta Society, reacted to the complication with the Ljubljana municipality newsletter. He warns that it can be considered "at least an exploitation of the grey zone between the unallowed and so-called regular practice of the city administration, which indicates distinct lack of integrity of the decision makers and those responsible in the city administration”.
"We have established that in the Newsletter more candidates from one of the lists (6) appeared, quoting their list several times, while the other candidates and lists were not presented in the Newsletter, which points to an unequal representation and possibility of access to the Newsletter by all the political entities. We have also noticed similarities between some of the design solutions used in the Newsletter and the ones used by the mentioned list in its campaign. The eye catches also the fact that the volume of the publication exceeds the average volume of the other Newsletters published this year by almost 55 percent, which indicates the regular activity has been exceeded," Doria wrote.
In his opinion the cases where a municipality newsletter exceeds its regular practice, and is distinctly biased, infringement of electoral legislation can be suspected, mainly the article forbidding financing of an electoral campaign by state bodies, bodies of local communities, etc. The relevant competent bodies will have to establish whether the low has been broken with the last number of the Ljubljana Newsletter – namely The Court of Auditors and the Internal Affairs Inspectorate, to which their report containing their findings will be addressed.
"TI Slovenia believes that exploitation of grey zones which can be noticed all over Slovenia is another indicator pointing to lack of political culture in our country. We would like to stress again that the eventual infringement of law in this case will be decided by the relevant competent bodies," Doria wrote.
