Hubač: The new process for selecting members of the REM Council will not be better than the previous one.

Hubač stated that the Committee indicated the process was suspended due to groundless objections, which misled the public into believing that the process may have been irregular.

“Translated into Serbian, they say that the process was interrupted because we unjustifiably withdrew our nominations, which is nonsense of the first order. At that same initial meeting, they declared us candidates of the opposition and even went so far as to call our decision to withdraw our nominations, due to irregularities, a ‘contribution to pumping,’” said Željko Hubač, a former candidate for a member of the REM Council, in the Newsnight program.

He emphasizes that the nominations were withdrawn due to “proven irregularities, due to non-compliance with the Law on Electronic Media, because the competition was announced several months late against legal regulations, as numerous GONG organizations proposed candidates despite having no legal right to do so, as well as because of candidates who should not have been eligible based on their past.”

“What they did is not even an arbitrary interpretation of the law; it is literally a contradiction of the most fundamental legal regulations. You have an organization that does not have the required number of members, its account balance is zero, yet they claim that this organization has 300 members and collects membership fees. That is how far the law has been violated, and the blame lies with the Committee for Culture and Information because that same committee accepted such candidacies on ‘honorary word’; it is their job to verify whether and in what way such organizations and candidates are valid. And now, that same Committee, which claims that the previous process was ‘as pure as a tear’ and that they are starting anew because we misled the public, says that the new process will be the same as the previous one. This means it will be filled with irregularities,” the interlocutor told N1.

When asked whether there will be monitoring during the new process, he said:

“We monitored the first process as well. Opposition committee members clearly pointed out the irregularities. That monitoring will exist now too. But some things have changed. One of them is that I believe if information about irregularities is communicated to the public now, they will react differently. Another thing is, I cannot believe that the authorities will accept REM to be independent, as this would mean that REM would elect the Management Board of RTS by a two-thirds majority and control everything that happens on many television stations, from suppressing the flow of information to even criminal acts. The authorities will not allow that.”

Hubač believes that the current government does not want to respect the legal regulations it has enacted, and that social changes are only possible if the government is prevented from violating the law.

“I had a meeting with Olivera Zekić, and with every argument I presented, it was evident that she was unfamiliar with the Law on Electronic Media. She just insisted on the opposite – you are free to interpret the law, the process was as clear as a tear. When you have arguments and those arguments do not provoke any sensation in the dialogue with your interlocutor, you see that they have an agenda which can only go as far as negotiations. I have also heard about an intention supported by some European officials to enter into some form of negotiation. But I do not understand how one negotiates the application of the law? The law is written, it is very clear, and it is easy to prove which organization is valid,” he stated.

Hubač also adds that it is more than evident that the government does not have credible and independent candidates.

**Source: N1**