Medijana files complaint against Nis mayor over SNS rally
The Medijana municipality filed a criminal complaint with the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office over an SNS campaign rally on King Milan Square, which it says was occupied for three days.
King Milan Square in Nis was occupied from October 20 to 22 without the approval of the Medijana municipality, and Mayor Dragoslav Pavlovic has now been reported over it. The municipality filed a criminal complaint with the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office over the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) campaign rally held on October 21, four days before the October 25 elections.
Who the complaint targets
Besides the mayor, the complaint names the officials responsible in the City Administration for Communal Affairs, in the work of the Nis inspection and communal police, as well as the communal police itself, the public utility company “Mediana” and a branch of “Elektrodistribucija Nis”. The municipality accuses them of failing to perform their official duties and abusing their official position, and of using public resources in preparing and holding the rally.
In a press statement, Medijana set out what exactly it is alleging:
“The persons covered by the criminal complaint are charged with having, by failing to perform their official duties and by abusing their official position, enabled the organizer of the rally to occupy a public area without the approval of the Medijana municipality and the permits of the competent city services”
These are allegations from the complaint and have not yet been examined in any proceedings. The response of the mayor and the city services is not part of the statement or of the reports we reviewed.
The stage and the one-hour deadline
According to the statement, King Milan Square was “occupied without the necessary approvals from October 20 to 22” because of the SNS rally. The Medijana communal inspection ordered that the stage and other structures be removed from the square within one hour. The municipality says this was not done.
Money from the city budget, a separate question
Alongside the complaint, a second debate over campaign costs is under way in Nis, though it is not part of the municipality’s filing. Dragan Milic, founder of the Movement for the Decentralization of Serbia (PODES), published contracts on November 3 showing that about ten days before the elections the city budget paid out 20 million dinars to the handball fans’ sports association “Zeleznicar - jug” and 25 million dinars to the basketball club “Konstantin”, 45 million dinars in total. Milic asked whether that money paid for the torches at the Nis Fortress and for the SNS campaign.
He put the claim this way in a social media post:
“While we treat children through text messages, while our city is in ruins and looks like a war zone, with streets torn up and breakdowns everywhere left unresolved, SNS criminal structures are laundering money to cover the costs of their campaign”
Milic also said that the prosecutor’s office and police had diligently examined every complaint against the Nis cardiac surgery clinic, but that in this case, as he claims, they are not acting. His allegations about the payments are not part of Medijana’s complaint, and he frames the claim that the money went to the campaign as a question to the authorities.
