Think Tank: Did Vucic Violate Anti-Corruption Law?

Referendum (BETAPHOTO/SASA DJORDJEVIC/EV)

The BIRODI Bureau for Social Research think tank has asked the Serbian Anti-Corruption Agency to determine whether President Aleksandar Vucic violated the conflict of interest clauses of the Law on Preventing Corruption by announcing the outcome of the Jan. 16 referendum before the results were officially released by the state electoral commission.

"The president of the state, who is at the same the president of a [political] party, did not abide by the regulations governing his rights and duties as head of state," BIRODI announced, adding that Vucic did not demonstrate care for maintaining trust in the office of president as a symbol of state unity -- as stipulated by the Serbian Constitution -- opting instead to confuse this role with his role as party leader.

Specifically, the think tank referred to Article 41 of the Law on Preventing Corruption, which states that "conflict of interest is a situation where a public official has a private interest which influences, can influence or appears to influence the performance of said official's public function."

BIRODI further alleged that by announcing the referendum results President Vucic also violated Article 40 Paragraph 1 of the anti-corruption law, whereby "A public official is obliged to never subordinate the interest of the public to his/her private interest, to abide by the regulations governing his/her rights and duties, and to inspire and maintain citizens' trust that said official is diligently and responsibly performing his/her public function."