Dragan Jovanović (politician)

Dragan Jovanović ( sr-cyr, Драган Јовановић; born 5 March 1972) is a Serbian politician who served as the mayor of Topola from 2004 to 2014 and as a member of the National Assembly of Serbia from 2014 to 2020. He is now a member of the Topola municipal council. Formerly with New Serbia, he has been the leader of Better Serbia since its founding in 2017.

Early life and career

Jovanović was born in Aranđelovac, in what was then the Socialist Republic of Serbia in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. He is a graduate of the University of Belgrade Faculty of Electrical Engineering's department of industrial management.

Politician

Jovanović was New Serbia's secretary-general from 2003 until 2005, when he was elected to the first of two terms as a party vice-president.

Mayor of Topola

Jovanović became mayor of Topola via a direct election in the 2004 Serbian local elections. Direct mayoral elections were subsequently abolished, Jovanović was returned to the mayor's office with the support of the municipal assembly following the local elections of 2008 and 2012.

In December 2007, Jovanović joined with other members of New Serbia and members of the Serbian Radical Party to prevent the B92 program ''Peščanik'' from recording an episode at Aranđelovac's House of Culture; Jovanović and the others took control of the microphones and prevented the recording from taking place. This received international attention, including a reference in the United States Department of State's ''Country Report on Human Rights Practices for 2007'', which also stated that Jovanović made threats against B92 in a subsequent interview. In the aftermath of this controversy, New Serbia members accused B92 of pursuing an "anti-Serb and anti-Constitutional campaign." B92 responded that New Serbia's criticism was actually motivated by its own frequent criticisms of their party leader Velimir Ilić.

In 2009, Jovanović joined other Serbian politicians from across the political spectrum in accusing Croatian authorities of preventing Serbs from returning to the country and participating in local elections.

Jovanović stood down as mayor in 2014, as he could not remain in this role and hold a dual mandate as a parliamentarian. He was instead chosen as president (i.e., speaker) of the municipal assembly.

Parliamentarian

New Serbia

From 2000 to 2011, Serbian parliamentary mandates were awarded to sponsoring parties or coalitions rather than to individual candidates, and it was common practice for the mandates to be assigned out of numerical order. Jovanović was included in New Serbia's electoral lists in the 2003 and 2007 parliamentary elections, although he was not included as part of its parliamentary delegation on either occasion. He briefly received a mandate following the 2008 election, in which New Serbia ran on a combined list with the Democratic Party of Serbia, but he resigned after only a month to permit party leader Velimir Ilić to enter the assembly as a replacement.

Serbia's electoral system was reformed in 2011, such that parliamentary mandates were awarded in numerical order to candidates on successful lists. New Serbia joined the Serbian Progressive Party's coalition list for the 2012 parliamentary election and maintained its alliance with the Progressives for the 2014 and 2016 campaigns. Jovanović was not a candidate in 2012 but received the ninety-eighth position on the Progressive list in 2014 and was elected when it won a majority victory with 158 out of 250 mandates. He received the 107th position in the 2016 and was returned for another term when the list won 131 mandates.

During the 2016–20 parliament, Jovanović was a member of the parliamentary committee on spatial planning, transport, infrastructure, and telecommunications; a deputy member of the environmental protection committee and the agriculture, forestry, and water management committee; and a member of the parliamentary friendship groups with Albania, Armenia, Belarus, Belgium, Croatia, France, Italy, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania, Russia, Turkey, and the United Kingdom.

Independent member

Velimir Ilić expelled Jovanović from New Serbia in January 2017. This occurred after Ilić withdrew his support from the administration of Progressive Party leader Aleksandar Vučić; Jovanović, as a party vice-president, stated that Ilić was entitled to his personal opinions but that the party as a whole would continue to support the administration. Ilić justified his decision to expel Jovanović on the grounds that the latter had disobeyed the decisions of the party leadership, had made false claims about a diploma, and was compromised because of his involvement in a 2012 car accident. Jovanović rejected these claims and said that Ilić was really concerned about a possible leadership challenge.

At around the same time that Jovanović was expelled from New Serbia, fellow deputies Dubravka Filipovski and Mladen Grujić voluntarily left the party on the grounds of their opposition to Ilić's leadership and his decision to withdraw New Serbia's support from Vučić's administration. Initially, all three continued to support the Progressive-led administration.

Founding of Better Serbia

In June 2017, Jovanović joined with Miroslav Parović and Vladan Glišić to present a manifesto for a new right-wing political party. Jovanović said that the group would offer conservative Serb voters a third choice, distinct from the country's existing government and opposition blocs. Shortly after this meeting, he launched a new political party called Better Serbia with himself as the leader.

Better Serbia and Healthy Serbia ran on a joint list in the 2020 Serbian parliamentary election, and Jovanović received third position on the list. By this time, Jovanović had reversed his previous support of the Progressive administration, saying that it had turned out to be worse than the Democratic Party-led administration that preceded it. The list did not cross the electoral threshold to win representation in the assembly.

Municipal politics since 2016

Jovanović appeared in the lead position on the coalition list centred around the Progressive Party in Topola for the 2016 Serbian local elections. The list won a majority victory with twenty-nine out of forty-one seats, and he was selected for another term as president of the municipal assembly.

For the 2020 local elections, Better Serbia fielded its own list in Topola with Jovanović in the lead position. The list won a narrow victory over the Progressive Party's coalition list, sixteen seats to fifteen. The Progressives subsequently formed a new coalition government with smaller parties, however, and Better Serbia served in opposition.

In November 2020, Jovanović was expelled from the municipal assembly on the grounds that he had changed his residence from Topola to Belgrade and was no longer on the local voters list. Jovanović responded that this decision was based on falsified information and that he had actually been expelled for being a "thorn in the side" of the local authorities.

In April 2021, the defection of two councillors from the Progressives allowed Jovanović and Better Serbia to form a new municipal administration. He did not return to the mayor's office but was instead named as a member of the municipal council (i.e., the executive branch of the municipal government) with responsibility for infrastructure and the economy.

2022 parliamentary election

In February 2022, Jovanović announced that Better Serbia would align itself with the Progressive Party for the 2022 Serbian parliamentary election, despite its prior opposition, and participate in the election on that party's list.G. Gligorijević, "Topola: Dragan Jovanović i “Bolja Srbija” ipak na listi SNS"
''Danas'', 15 February 2022, accessed 15 February 2022.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jovanovic, Dragan
1972 births
Living people
Members of the National Assembly (Serbia)
New Serbia politicians
Better Serbia politicians