Ivan Bošnjak ( sr-Cyrl, Иван Бошњак, ; born 4 November 1974) is a Serbian politician and administrator. He was a member of the Assembly of Vojvodina in 2012, served as mayor of Zrenjanin from 2012 to 2014, and was a state secretary in the Serbian ministry of public administration and local self-government from 2014 to 2020. Since late 2022, he serves as a state secretary in the Serbian Ministry of Human and Minority Rights and Social Dialogue. Bošnjak is a member of the Serbian Progressive Party (, SNS).

Early life and career

Bošnjak was born in the village of

Melenci Melenci (; hu, Melence) is a village located in the Zrenjanin municipality, in the Central Banat District of Serbia. It is situated in the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina. The village has a Serb ethnic majority (93.40%) and its population num ...

in the municipality of Zrenjanin, Vojvodina, in what was then the

Socialist Republic of Serbia , life_span = 1944–1992 , status = Constituent state of Yugoslavia , p1 = Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia , flag_p1 = Flag of German Reich (1935–1945).svg , p2 ...

in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. He graduated from the University of Belgrade Faculty of Veterinary Medicine in 2000, earned a master's degree in 2010, and received his Ph.D. in 2016. He has also served as a reserve lieutenant in the Serbian Army.

Politician

Bošnjak entered political life as a member of the Democratic Party of Serbia (''Demokratska stranka Srbije'', DSS), appearing in the seventh position on a combined DSS– New Serbia

electoral list An electoral list is a grouping of candidates for election, usually found in proportional or mixed electoral systems, but also in some plurality electoral systems. An electoral list can be registered by a political party (a party list) or can ...

in Zrenjanin for the

2008 Serbian local elections Local elections were held in Serbia on 11 May 2008, concurrently with the 2008 Serbian parliamentary election and the 2008 Vojvodina provincial election. A re-vote was held at three poling stations in Belgrade on 18 May 2008 due to irregularities ...

. The list received four mandates, and he did not serve in the assembly that followed. He later joined the SNS. He was elected to the Vojvodina provincial assembly in the 2012 provincial election, winning Zrenjanin's third constituency seat in the second round. He also received the eighth position on the SNS's list for Zrenjanin in the 2012 local elections and was elected when the list won twenty-four mandates. The

Democratic Party Democratic Party most often refers to: *Democratic Party (United States) Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to: Active parties Africa *Botswana Democratic Party *Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea *Gabonese Democratic Party *Demo ...

(''Demokratska stranka'', DS) and its allies formed government at the provincial level, and Bošnjak served in opposition. At the city level, the SNS and its allies formed a coalition government, and Bošnjak supported the administration.

Goran Knežević Goran Knežević ( sr-cyr, Горан Кнежевић, ; born 12 May 1957) is a Serbian politician and former professional basketball player. His father is Vuksan Knežević (b. 1931), former Yugoslav political dissident and writer who was sent to ...

became mayor of Zrenjanin in the immediate aftermath of the 2012 local elections, but he soon resigned to take a position in the

government of Serbia The Government of Serbia ( sr, Влада Србије, Vlada Srbije), formally the Government of the Republic of Serbia ( sr, Влада Републике Србије, Vlada Republike Srbije), commonly abbreviated to Serbian Government ( sr, � ...

. Bošnjak was chosen as the city's new mayor on 21 August 2012. He resigned from the provincial assembly on 14 December 2012 as he could not hold a

dual mandate A dual mandate is the practice in which elected officials serve in more than one elected or other public position simultaneously. This practice is sometimes known as double jobbing in Britain and ''cumul des mandats'' in France; not to be confused ...

. In January 2014, he signed a friendship and co-operation agreement with the Croatian municipality of Krnjak; this was the first such agreement between municipalities in Serbia and Croatia to be arranged at the consular level. Bošnjak was appointed as a state secretary in Serbia's ministry of public administration and local self-government after the

2014 Serbian parliamentary election Parliamentary elections were held in Serbia on 16 March 2014, with nineteen electoral lists competing for 250 members of the National Assembly. The election was called early, after tensions in the coalition led by the ruling Serbian Progressive P ...

, and he formally resigned as mayor on 12 June 2014. He served in the ministry for the next six years, standing down after the 2020 parliamentary election. In a 2017 interview, he defended the Serbian government's policy on the rights of national minority communities."Bošnjak: Pripadnici manjina u Srbiji mogu da budu zadovoljni"
''Blic'' (Source: ''Tanjug''), 5 August 2017, accessed 30 October 2021.

Electoral record

Provincial ( Vojvodina)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bosnjak, Ivan 1974 births Living people Politicians from Zrenjanin Mayors of places in Serbia Members of the Assembly of Vojvodina Democratic Party of Serbia politicians Serbian Progressive Party politicians