Sinj Mayor Miro Bulj sparked an unprecedented scandal at the 311th Sinjska Alka by refusing to sit in the honorary box and requesting 330 additional tickets from the organizers, which he did not receive.
Sinj Mayor Miro Bulj, who has been at the helm of the city for five years and is entering his sixth, made an unprecedented move on Sunday at the 311th Sinjska Alka. For the first time in history, the leader of the Alka town did not sit in the honorary seat in the Alka box reserved for the host, but instead positioned himself further away in the stands, among a group of loyal spectators, trying to attract the attention of the cameras.
Bulj spent the entire Sunday wearing a T-shirt with the inscription "Alka to the People", and as the authors of articles in Jutarnji list and Slobodna Dalmacija sarcastically note, he should have added "The People, That's Me". His unusual behavior culminated at the traditional Vojvoda's reception at the Alka Palace, where he refused to be photographed with the alkars, their squires, and their guests from civil, military, and church authorities.
The background to Bulj's protest lies in his failed attempt to obtain as many as 330 additional tickets from the Knightly Alka Society, which organizes the Alka. In addition to the 40 or so tickets he personally controlled, not counting the city councilors who each received two, Bulj requested 330 more seats in the stands. The Society did not give them to him because they simply were not available. However, even if they had been, a source suggests that the Alka leadership would hardly have accommodated him, given that in previous years Bulj used tickets to organize chants of "Miro! Miro!" among the audience.
Jutarnji list and Slobodna Dalmacija point out that over the past five years, Miro Bulj has become the absolute master of everything in Sinj, except for the Knightly Alka Society. He has failed to subordinate this association, of which he is himself a member, to the interests of his political faction. His behavior on Sunday is interpreted as an act of boycott and an attempt to draw attention to himself on a day when Sinj was full of TV cameras. Bulj continued with his usual rhetoric, accusing authorities at all levels of the decline of Sinj and calling his criticisms of officials "verbal soup."
The question remains who Miro Bulj actually boycotted on Sunday and whether he will realize that through his actions he boycotted himself. His act will certainly be recorded in the annals of the Knightly Alka Society, but also in the documents of the city of Sinj. What the consequences of this unprecedented rift between the mayor and the organizers of the most important event in Sinj will be, time will tell.
