Vesna Marjanović (Serbian Cyrillic: Весна Марјановић; born June 5, 1969) is a politician in Serbia. She has served as a member of the National Assembly of Serbia on an almost continuous basis since 2007 as a member of the Democratic Party.
Early life and career
editMarjanović was born in Belgrade, then part of the Socialist Republic of Serbia in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. She studied film and television production in South Africa, earned a degree from the University of Belgrade Faculty of Law, has been a co-ordinator of legal and educational programs at the Fond Centar za demokratiju, and has worked for the marketing agency Idols & Friends since 1996.[1]
Political career
editMarjanović joined the Democratic Party in 1990 and served as personal secretary to Zoran Đinđić during his tenure as chair of the party's executive board. She later left the Democratic Party to join the breakaway Democratic Centre, was appointed as the party's spokesperson in 2000, and became chair of its executive board in 2003. In the 2003 Serbian presidential election, she was spokesperson and co-ordinator of the electoral staff for Democratic Opposition of Serbia candidate and Democratic Centre leader Dragoljub Mićunović.[2]
The Democratic Centre contested the 2003 Serbian parliamentary election as part of the Democratic Party's electoral alliance. Marjanović received the forty-third position on the alliance's electoral list; the list won thirty-seven seats, and she was not selected to serve in the parliament that followed.[3] (From 2000 to 2011, parliamentary mandates were awarded to sponsoring parties or coalitions rather than to individual candidates, and it was common practice for the mandates to be distributed out of numerical order. Marjanović could have received a mandate notwithstanding her relatively low position on the list, although in fact she was not.)[4]
The Democratic Centre merged back into the Democratic Party on October 16, 2004, and Marjanović was named as vice-president of the Democratic Party's executive board following the merger. She was elected as a member of the Belgrade municipal assembly in the 2004 local elections.[5]
Member of the National Assembly
editMarjanović received the 138th position on the Democratic Party's election list (which was mostly arranged in alphabetical order) in the 2007 parliamentary election.[6] The list won sixty-four seats, and on this occasion she was selected as part of the party's parliamentary group.[7] The party joined a new coalition government after the election, and Marjanović served as part of the government's parliamentary majority.
She received the 109th position on the Democratic Party's For a European Serbia list (which was, again, mostly organized in alphabetical order) in the 2008 parliamentary election.[8] The party won 102 seats and ultimately emerged at the leadership of a new coalition government; Marjanović again served as part of its parliamentary majority. She resigned from the assembly on April 12, 2011, upon being appointed to the Belgrade city council (i.e., the executive wing of the municipal government), and was replaced by Ljiljana Lučić.[9][10]
Serbia's electoral system was reformed in 2011, such that parliamentary mandates were awarded in numerical order to candidates on successful lists. Marjanović received the forty-fifth position on the Democratic Party's Choice for a Better Life alliance in the 2012 parliamentary election and was returned to the assembly when the list won sixty-seven mandates.[11] The Serbian Progressive Party and its allies formed a new government after the election, and the Democratic Party moved into opposition, where it has remained since this time. She was re-elected in the elections of 2014 and 2016, in which the party's lists won nineteen and sixteen seats, respectively.[12]
Marjanović is a member of the parliamentary culture and information committee; a deputy member of the committee on the rights of the child; a member of Serbia's delegation to La Francophonie (where Serbia has observer status); and a member of the parliamentary friendship groups with Croatia, France, Italy, Norway, the United Kingdom, the United States of America, and the countries of Sub-Saharan Africa.[13] She previously served as a substitute member of Serbia's delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe from 2012 to 2016 and was deputy chair of the assembly committee on culture, science, education, and media after the elections of 2012 and 2014.[14][15][16]
References
edit- ^ VESNA MARJANOVIĆ, Otvoreni Parlament, accessed 20 November 2017.
- ^ VESNA MARJANOVIĆ, Otvoreni Parlament, accessed 20 November 2017. See also "Three DOS parties deny merger speculations," British Broadcasting Corporation Monitoring European - Political, 17 May 2001 (Source: Tanjug news agency, Belgrade, in Serbo-Croat 1419 gmt 17 May 01).
- ^ Избори за народне посланике Народне скупштине одржани 28. децембра 2003. године, ИЗБОРНЕ ЛИСТЕ (ДЕМОКРАТСКА СТРАНКА - БОРИС ТАДИЋ), Republika Srbija - Republička izborna komisija, accessed 5 April 2017.
- ^ Serbia's Law on the Election of Representatives (2000) stipulated that parliamentary mandates would be awarded to electoral lists (Article 80) that crossed the electoral threshold (Article 81), that mandates would be given to candidates appearing on the relevant lists (Article 83), and that the submitters of the lists were responsible for selecting their parliamentary delegations within ten days of the final results being published (Article 84). See Law on the Election of Representatives, Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia, No. 35/2000, made available via LegislationOnline, accessed 28 February 2017.
- ^ VESNA MARJANOVIĆ, Otvoreni Parlament, accessed 20 November 2017.
- ^ Избори за народне посланике Народне скупштине одржани 21. јануара и 8. фебрауара 2007. године, ИЗБОРНЕ ЛИСТЕ (Демократска странка - Борис Тадић), Republika Srbija - Republička izborna komisija, accessed 5 April 2017.
- ^ 14 February 2007 legislature, National Assembly of Serbia, accessed 20 November 2017.
- ^ Избори за народне посланике Народне скупштине одржани 11. маја 2008. године, ИЗБОРНЕ ЛИСТЕ (ЗА ЕВРОПСКУ СРБИЈУ - БОРИС ТАДИЋ), Republika Srbija - Republička izborna komisija, accessed 5 April 2017.
- ^ Информације о одржаним седницама 2011. године, Republika Srbija - Republička izborna komisija, accessed 20 November 2017.
- ^ "Poslanica kluba ZES Vesna Marjanović podnela ostavku", Blic (Source: Tanjug), 12 April 2011, accessed 20 November 2017.
- ^ Избори за народне посланике Народне скупштине, 6. мај 2012. године, ИЗБОРНЕ ЛИСТЕ (ИЗБОР ЗА БОЉИ ЖИВОТ- БОРИС ТАДИЋ), Republika Srbija - Republička izborna komisija, accessed 26 January 2017.
- ^ She received the eighteenth position in 2014 and the fifteenth position in 2016, narrowly winning direct election both times. See Избори за народне посланике Народне скупштине одржани 16. и 23. марта 2014. године, ИЗБОРНЕ ЛИСТЕ (СА ДЕМОКРАТСКОМ СТРАНКОМ ЗА ДЕМОКРАТСКУ СРБИЈУ), Republika Srbija - Republička izborna komisija, accessed 30 March 2017; and Избори за народне посланике 2016. године » Изборне листе (ЗА ПРАВЕДНУ СРБИЈУ – ДЕМОКРАТСКА СТРАНКА (НОВА, ДСХВ, ЗЗС)), Republika Srbija - Republička izborna komisija, accessed 30 March 2017.
- ^ VESNA MARJANOVIC, National Assembly of Serbia, accessed 20 November 2017.
- ^ Vesna MARJANOVIĆ, Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, accessed 20 November 2017.
- ^ "Skupštinski odbor za kulturu: Tasovac izašao van okvira ovlašćenja", Blic (Source: Tanjug), 19 October 2013, accessed 20 November 2017.
- ^ "Vesna Marjanović (DS) potpredsednica komiteta za kulturu SE", 7 April 2014, accessed 20 November 2017.