Ode to Muck

Mr. Ivankovic, Coca-Cola does not finance through the city budget. On the other hand, your salary does.

Long standing and (too) often escapades our honoured mayor brought the Zagreb’s citizens into a sort of lethargy, when it comes to violating their rights. However, to the last expression of the mayor’s autocracy, very few were untouched.

I am writing about, now almost cultish Bandic’s adds in newspapers by which he tries to tell the truth to Zagreb’s common people, for not living in ignorance.

For those ignorant, let me tell you what about it was. These ads were actually a reaction of the city councillor to some texts in the newspapers in which Zagreb’s Holding, to which the mayor identifies himself, not so long ago gave a notice to a great number of people. Among them were 350 handicapped and elderly people. It was in papers for a few days, and then the prised mayor decided to work on his image, all that on expense of the Zagreb’s taxpayers. Therefore, he made a decision about publishing paid ads in daily newspapers in order to Zagreb’s people finding the truth about managing their City. The truth about managing finally came out, that is a fact, but an average citizen does not have to read an ad to find out how his money was spent.

If we know that the basic price of ad in ‘Jutarnji list’ costs almost 30,000 kuna, in ‘Vecernji list’ 37,500 kuna, we can see that we are talking about a lot of our money that will pay ‘the truth’. However, it is just a tip of iceberg. Due to a position in the newspapers (front pages) and it was in colour, the city councillors made a decision for one of the most expensive way of publishing. And here is the fact that the ads will be published nine days in a row, which brought us to the sum of 500,000 kuna, and probably even more. The fact which scares the citizens of the Zagreb City is the mayor’s statement that in future he will take ‘as much as it takes’.

We should say that this practice by our mayor is not new one. Few years ago, he did something similar, putting an ad ‘It is the truth’, and he got a court admonition for it. It is just a political inadequate behaviour, which was legally sanctioned once. It seems that our mayor is more powerful than the judicial authority and legal acts. The saddest thing is the Bandic spokesperson’s statement, Mr Ivankovic, who admitted that he has no idea how much would these ads cost or how many ads were published from the beginning of the mandate. He recons that those few hundreds of thousands kuna, as he says, are ‘peanuts’ comparing to the amount of money big companies spent on such ads. In that context, he mentioned Coca-Cola Company, which spends 50% of its budget for promotion the brand. His conclusion was that Holding can spend few thousands kuna for allowing the public to see what companies do.

In front of the city government, it is almost madness prevailed, you cannot tell the public, cities companies from the entrepreneurs or company as Coca-Cola is. Mr. Ivankovic, Coca Cola is not financed from the city budget, but your salary is. It seems that the city government has forgotten that Coca Cola is financed by itself, and an average citizen is not interested in how much money will that company spend on advertising. On the other hand, the city’s newspapers are published in Zagreb, and the question is why that famous ‘truth’ cannot be published in them free?

The citizens of Zagreb will pay for other’s mistakes, again. It was not a month since the city has to, due to lack of money in the budget; raise the price of water, parking and some other ‘bits and pieces’. Bandic’s strategy is impeccable, if you make him angry, he will take the money from the city budget, and he will pay himself an ad. So, go on, the citizens of Zagreb, make him mad. Here is another fact of paid ads. Even if we put aside that, the Zagreb’s citizens pay for the information to which they are entitled to, by the Law about the right to the access to information. A man has to ask himself, what kind of truth is that if you have to pay for its publishing? We do not find the truth there, we find out about somebody’s truth, the truth of the one who decided to pay for its publishing. What kind of the truth is that? In my opinion, this is the coarsest manipulation of the democratic elected authority. That authority, although elected democratically, starts to show numerous factors of authoritarianism, such as producing its own truth.

If anything good came out of this sad story that is the fact that finally the Zagreb citizens’ voices are stronger, demanding to investigate the business managing of the City, as well as the Finance police to interfere. The state revision findings say that Zagreb is in the lead in illegitimacy. The mayor has lost its credibility due to such moves, even with his eagerest fans. It seems to me that the best indicator in this whole situation is the statement of one fan, ‘go on, play with our money that is a part of rope on which you hang yourself soon’.

Alenka Kosisa Cicin-Sain