SDP Still Hiding How Much It Spent on Campaign

There was no word about concrete numbers and donators and campaign director Dusko Ljustina failed to turn up at the conference.

ZAGREB, CROATIA - - You can’t ask me provocative questions – blushingly said Slavko Kojic, vice-president of Zagreb’s Social Democratic Party (SDP), head of the financial team of the SDP-HSU electoral camp and the city’s finance minister, refusing to respond to reporters’ questions about how much money was spend and who made donations for the party’s electoral campaign. 

Spurred by frequent criticism from Bandic’s opponents who published their property cards, donators

and funds for financing their campaigns on web sites, Zagreb’s SDP called a news conference with the subject “financing the campaign in the City of Zagreb”. But there was no word about concrete numbers, and Dusko Ljustina, the SDP’s campaign manager, failed to turn up at the conference.

- We are legalists and we submitted a temporary report about the financing of the campaign to the competent electoral commission, within the deadlines and according to the regulations of the Republic of Croatia. The deadline was seven days before the elections. The final report must be submitted 14 days after the official issuing of the electoral results – sad Kojic, reiterating several times that the SDP had fulfilled its duty, while some other candidates and parties have not.

He said that he had unofficially learnt that the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) had submitted its temporary report to the commission within the set deadline, but not according to regulations.

And that was about it from the news conference on the financing of the party’s campaign! Kojic refused to answer any further questions about concrete numbers, for example whether it was true that Andjelko Leko took part in the financing and whether more funds would spent in the second round of elections than in the first round. All he said was that he did not want to talk about numbers because the report was not final.

- Raw data can be political implications and we are not like that. They’re saying we spent 40 million kuna? Less would have been spent on the campaign for the mayor of New York. This reminds me of the story of the ant and the cricket – Kojic stressed.

Adding that there was no ban on publishing the information, Kojic said that 14 days after the official results are issued, the public will be acquainted with the data.