Slovenia: Alleged irregularities in Raiven’s selection lead to the resignation of an RTV SLO employee

Chief editor of Slovenia‘s national television entertainment program Vanja Vardjan resigned earlier today due to suspected irregularities over the country’s participation in this year’s Eurovision Song Contest.

Specifically, in relation to a complaint filed with the Committee for the Prevention of Corruption, it is claimed that Slovenia’s national broadcaster disregarded the rules it had established for the representative selection process.

More precisely, RTV SLO declared in October of last year that a national competition named “Misija Malmö” will select the artist who will represent the country in Malmö. The four participating artists were even mentioned as having already been chosen. The songs that the artists had submitted were supposed to be released on December 12.  However, this didn’t happen because Raiven was ultimately selected as the country’s representative on December 5.

Later, Vanja Vardjan claimed that there was never any consideration of holding a national final and that Raiven’s candidacy had a significant advantage over the other submissions.

Astrid Kljun, another “Misija Malmö” contender, responded as well, saying that Raiven was already chosen internally and did not apply to compete in the national final.

The Committee for the Prevention of Corruption released a report after Vanja Vardjan resigned, stating that there is currently no evidence that RTV SLO engaged in any irregularities during the representative selection process. Notwithstanding the artist or song selected, the process-oriented investigations will go on.

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Source: siol.net