Ivosevic: The Now Traditional Pre-Election Incentives for Citizens Are Corruptive

Zoran Ivosevic (BETAPHOTO/MILOS MISKOV/DS)

Former Supreme Court judge and retired university professor Zoran Ivosevic has said, speaking of the government's financial aid to high-schoolers, students, pensioners and welfare users, that pre-election financial incentives for Serbian citizens are not envisaged by law, which makes their now traditional use "corruptive by nature."

"That is why the Agency for Prevention of Corruption should examine the origin of the money with that purpose, and the fact that it has not had a problem with that for quite a while now testifies to the situation in the state not being the way it should be according to the Constitution," Ivosevic said in an op-ed for the Dec. 1 issue of daily Danas.

He further said the ruling Serbian Progressive Party was committing "pre-election bribery" through announcements by Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic - the current leader of the party's election tickets - that before the elections students would be paid 1,000 dinars, high-schoolers and welfare users 10,000 dinars each, and pensioners 20,000 dinars.

Ivosevic underlined that under the Constitution the Serbian president could not take part in election campaigns in any way, because it was defined that the president expressed state unity which "must be not only territorial, but rather national and political, too."