Published: May 27, 2025.
Civic initiatives demand that the President of the National Assembly, Ana Brnabić, urgently announce which candidates for REM Council members she considers “theirs” and which “ours”, as she herself said in a public speech on May 27, 2025.
With the statement: “Once again, you clearly said that for you, the quasi-elite, one rule applies, and for us, the plebs, the citizens, another. Your candidates can be co-owners and owners of whatever they want, and that’s all fine and commendable,” the President of the Assembly acknowledged the existence of a political division of candidates in the process of electing members of an independent regulatory body, even though the law does not allow such a division.
REM elects neither the “elite”, nor the “plebs”, nor the “citizens”, as she stated, but authorized proposers from the civil sector, universities, journalist associations and other independent bodies. The Assembly is obliged to apply the Law on Electronic Media and subject all proposers and candidates to the same check, and not to the political preferences of the parties in power. REM members must not be the result of political agreements, as this directly violates the law and destroys the credibility of that body. The President of the Assembly must not use rhetoric that justifies the political allocation of seats in this body. This undermines the legitimacy of the process, admits political bias in the selection and confirms that REM is perceived as an extended arm of politics.
The President of the National Assembly gave these assessments at the conference she held in her capacity as President regarding the statements of a member of the Committee for Culture and Information about illegal candidates and proposers in the election process for REM Council members. We remind the President of the National Assembly that it is the legal obligation of the members of the Board to determine, decide and inform the public about the fulfillment of the legal requirements of both the proposers and candidates for membership in the REM Council, and that no one, especially the President of the National Assembly, may question this legal obligation.
We demand that the President of the National Assembly publicly announce which candidates she considers to be “our” and “theirs” and on what basis, to publish all received candidacies and proposers before the Committee session, as well as to stop presenting inaccurate information about proposers and candidates. Citizens have the right to know all information about the election of this independent body. REM must be an independent, professional and credible body, and not a training ground for political confrontations between the authorities and dissenters.