Jelisaveta Veljković ( sr-Cyrl, Јелисавета Вељковић; 1951 – 12 January 2023) was a politician from

Serbia Serbia (, ; Serbian language, Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian language, Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe, Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Bas ...

. She has served in the

National Assembly of Serbia The National Assembly ( sr-cyr, Народна скупштина, Narodna skupština, ) is the unicameral legislature of Serbia. The assembly is composed of 250 deputies who are proportionally elected to four-year terms by secret ballot. The as ...

on an almost continuous basis since 2014 as a member of the

Party of United Pensioners of Serbia A party is a gathering of people who have been invited by a Hospitality, host for the purposes of socializing, conversation, recreation, or as part of a festival or other commemoration or celebration of a special occasion. A party will oft ...

(PUPS), until her death.

Private career

Veljković was a retired teacher living in

Sremski Karlovci Sremski Karlovci ( sr-cyrl, Сремски Карловци, ; hu, Karlóca; tr, Karlofça) is a town and municipality located in the South Bačka District of the autonomous province of Vojvodina, Serbia. It is situated on the banks of the Danub ...

Vojvodina Vojvodina ( sr-Cyrl, Војводина}), officially the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, is an autonomous province that occupies the northernmost part of Serbia. It lies within the Pannonian Basin, bordered to the south by the national capital ...

Political career

The PUPS contested 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 ...

on an

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 ...

led by the

Socialist Party of Serbia The Socialist Party of Serbia ( sr, Социјалистичка партија Србије, Socijalistička partija Srbije, SPS) is a political party in Serbia. It is led by Ivica Dačić. It was founded in 1990 as the direct successor to t ...

. Veljković received the thirty-ninth position on the list and was elected when the list won forty-four mandates. The PUPS did not participate in Serbia's government during the parliament that followed but provided external support to the government in the assembly. For the 2016 parliamentary election, the PUPS formed a new alliance with the

Serbian Progressive Party The Serbian Progressive Party ( sr-cyrl, Српска напредна странка, Srpska napredna stranka, SNS) has been the ruling political party of Serbia since 2012. Founded by Tomislav Nikolić and Aleksandar Vučić in 2008 as a s ...

, and Veljković received the 231st position (out of 250) on the Progressive-led ''

Aleksandar Vučić Aleksandar Vučić ( sr-Cyrl, Александар Вучић, ; born 5 March 1970) is a Serbian politician serving as the president of Serbia since 2017, and as the president of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) since 2012. Vučić served ...

– Serbia Is Winning'' list. This was too low a position for direct election to be a realistic prospect, and she was not initially elected even as the list won a majority victory with 131 mandates. She did, however, receive a new mandate on 21 April 2017 as a replacement for

Konstantin Arsenović Konstantin Arsenović ( sr-cyr, Константин Арсеновић; 1940–January 31, 2017) was a politician and military official in Serbia. He served in the National Assembly of Serbia from 2008 until his death in 2017. Arsenović was a mem ...

, who had died in January of that year. The PUPS was by this time part of Serbia's

coalition government A coalition government is a form of government in which political parties cooperate to form a government. The usual reason for such an arrangement is that no single party has achieved an absolute majority after an election, an atypical outcome in ...

, and Veljković again served as a government supporter in the assembly. She received the 129th position on the Progressive Party's '' Aleksandar Vučić — For Our Children'' coalition list in the 2020 Serbian parliamentary election and was elected to a third term when the list won a landslide majority with 188 mandates. She was a member of the committee on the rights of the child and the agriculture, forestry, and water management committee; a deputy member of the committee on human and minority rights and gender equality and the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...

–Serbia stabilization and association committee; and a member of the parliamentary friendship groups with

Fiji Fiji ( , ,; fj, Viti, ; Fiji Hindi: फ़िजी, ''Fijī''), officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consists ...

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

, and

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

.JELISAVETA VELjKOVIC
National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia, accessed 23 January 2021.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Veljkovic, Jelisaveta 1951 births Living people People from Sremski Karlovci 21st-century Serbian women politicians 21st-century Serbian politicians Members of the National Assembly (Serbia) Party of United Pensioners of Serbia politicians Women members of the National Assembly (Serbia) Politicians of Vojvodina