Karleusa's Lucani Concert Returns, Now Privately Funded

Jelena Karleusa’s concert in Lucani, canceled in late August after the municipality planned to pay for it from the local budget, has been rescheduled for September 20. The opposition Citizens’ Group “One Team” (Jedan tim) in the local assembly said today it opposes the new date, claiming the cost is now being covered by a private businessman from Lucani.

The concert was first announced for late August, organized by the municipal Center for Culture. At the time, the estimated price was 3.2 million dinars from the municipal budget. After the “One Team” council group objected, citing what it called public opposition to spending taxpayer money on a pop singer’s performance, the concert was canceled.

“Telling some people once that they are not welcome isn’t enough. Last time we stopped municipal budget money from going to a pro-regime singer, but the singer still has to get her cut for loyalty, so this time a certain private businessman is treating us to a ‘concert’,” the Citizens’ Group “One Team” said in a statement.

The opposition has not named the businessman now paying for the performance, although it claims his identity is known in Lucani. “One Team” estimates the privately funded concert will cost around 30,000 euros, which, at the official exchange rate, is close to what the municipality originally planned to spend on the same show. In other words, the source of the money changed, while the price of the concert, by the opposition’s estimate, stayed in a similar range.

At the same time, a charity drive to fund treatment for a girl named Jana is scheduled in Lucani on Sunday. The opposition used that coincidence to address the man financing Karleusa’s performance directly.

“A word of friendly advice for the private patron from Lucani. On Sunday there is a charity drive (in Lucani) for treating the girl Jana, and that roughly 30,000 euros, by our estimate, that you owe your employers, direct it toward this girl’s treatment instead,” the Citizens’ Group “One Team” said in its statement.

The message named no one, but it made its arithmetic clear: the amount the opposition estimates for the private concert and the amount it says the charity drive needs for Jana’s treatment are, by its account, roughly the same. With that, “One Team” is framing a question of priorities: a well known singer’s concert versus a child’s treatment in the same community, on the very day Lucani is holding a fundraiser.

It has not been announced whether the Center for Culture will still be the formal organizer of the concert, now without spending municipal money, and neither the businessman nor representatives of the Lucani municipality have responded to “One Team’s” claims. Jelena Karleusa has also not commented on the allegations from the Lucani opposition.

It also remains unclear whether the September 20 concert will actually go ahead without a single dinar from the municipal budget, as the opposition suspects, or whether part of the cost, venue rental, security or technical equipment, for instance, will still fall on the budget through some other line item. “One Team” says it will keep following the story and expects local authorities to publicly explain who is organizing the performance and who is paying for it, since, as the group notes, the first attempt to fund it from the budget was already stopped once by its protest.

The whole story, from the first announcement in late August to the new date on September 20, has run exactly three weeks. In that time, according to the opposition’s statements, nothing has changed except the source of the funding: the venue is the same, the performer is the same, and the same people are still arguing about it, only the municipal budget has, at least on paper, been taken out of the equation. Whether that will be enough to close the dispute over the Lucani concert, or whether the argument over who is really paying for Jelena Karleusa’s performance will continue past September 20, depends on whether the businessman or the municipal authorities respond at all to the questions “One Team” has been asking for days.