Toppled Mayor Leaves Serbia’s Capital Without a City Government · Global Voices
Now former Belgrade mayor <PERSON> at the 2010 XIV Electoral Assembly of the Democratic Party; official photo of the Democratic Party (Demokratska stranka), used under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license.
The mayor of Serbia's capital city, <PERSON>, was fired from his post on 24 September 2013, after a 5-hour debate at which he was present and a secret vote of city councilors that followed. The initiative was backed by the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), its coalition partner the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS), as well as the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS).
The now former mayor and notorious national media mogul [sr] <PERSON>, was removed as Belgrade's top official due to suspicion of several cases of corruption and abuse of power. <PERSON> is also a top official of the Democratic Party (DS), which was in power in Serbia until last year's elections. He held a press conference on the day he was removed from office, stressing that these allegations were false and his removal was part of “a political deal” by the coalition in power. In an interview [sr] for Novosti daily, SNS representative and President of the National Assembly, <PERSON>, responded to Mr. <PERSON>’ claims:
<PERSON> tvrdi da vi zapravo kupujete vreme kako biste njega što duže provlačili kroz medije zbog navodnih afera?
- To su potpune besmislice. Kako je moguće, ako je sve rađeno u skladu sa zakonom, otvoriti aferu i pokazati dokument koji ukazuje na kršenje zakona. Meni to deluje kao unapred aboliranje ljudi za koje se zna da su krivi i da su punili sopstvene džepove. Očigledno je bilo mnogo toga u „Vodovodu i kanalizaciji“, „Infostanu“ i brojnim drugim preduzećima i na sve to su nam ukazali ljudi koji tamo rade i koji više ne mogu da gledaju da se nešto nabavlja po tri puta višim cenama. 463
Pa i za rekonstrukciju Bulevara kralja <PERSON> izabrana drugoplasirana firma čija je ponuda bila za 650 miliona dinara skuplja.
<PERSON> claims that you are in fact buying time to drag him through the media as long as possible for the alleged affairs?
- That is complete nonsense. How is it possible, if everything was done according to law, to open an affair and show a document that demonstrates illegal acts. To me this seems like absolving people in advance who are known to be guilty and having filled their own pockets. It's obvious there was much of this in [city utility companies] “Water and Waste”, “Infostan” and many other companies and we were pointed to all of that by people who work there and cannot stand to watch more procurements at three times higher prices. Even for the reconstruction of King Aleksandar Boulevard, the srunner-up company was chosen whose offer was 650 million dinars [approximately 5.7 million euros or 7.75 million U.S. dollars] higher.
In a recent related statement Deputy Prime Minister and leader of SNS, <PERSON>, explained that Mr. <PERSON> would still hold his duties for the next month, after which his party would delegate “a professional team” to run the capital city and guaranteed that city elections would be held within the next six months. <PERSON>, however, is calling for immediate direct local elections [sr], confident that he and his party could take the polls in this round. This scenario is highly unlikely, as the mayor of Belgrade is appointed by the Serbian National Assembly and direct elections would require an extensive process to change electoral procedures.
<PERSON> also mentioned what many fear and what <PERSON> discussed previously – that Belgrade's debt is much higher than city authorities and former Mayor <PERSON> made public. 704