Jana Žitňanská (born 17 May 1974) is a Slovak journalist and politician. She has been a

Member of the European Parliament A member of the European Parliament (MEP) is a person who has been Election, elected to serve as a popular representative in the European Parliament. When the European Parliament (then known as the Common Assembly of the European Coal and S ...

since 2014 as well as the

European Conservatives and Reformists European Conservatives and Reformists may refer to: *European Conservatives and Reformists Party (ECR Party), a soft Eurosceptic European political party *European Conservatives and Reformists Group The European Conservatives and Reformists ...

(ECR). Žitňanská worked as a member of the Broadcasting and Retransmission Council between 2001 and 2007.

Political career

Early political career

Žitňanská held the position of vice-president of KDH until from 1998 until 28 May 2012, after which she joined Gábor Grendel with establishing the political party

NOVA A nova ( novae or novas) is a transient astronomical event that causes the sudden appearance of a bright, apparently "new" star (hence the name "nova", Latin for "new") that slowly fades over weeks or months. All observed novae involve white ...

and served as vice-president. In the

2014 European Parliament election The 2014 European Parliament election was held in the European Union (EU) between 22 and 25 May 2014. It was the 8th parliamentary election since the first direct elections in 1979, and the first in which the European political parties field ...

, Žitňanská ran in second place as a candidate for the coalition of parties NOVA, KDS, and OKS. On 12 February 2019, Žitňanská announced that she would not run again in the EP elections in European Parliament election that year, citing her desire to change Slovakia's approach to disabled people and their families.

For the People and Democrats

In 2019, Žitňanská joined For the People, a newly-established party of former president

Andrej Kiska Andrej Kiska (; born 2 February 1963) is a Slovak politician, entrepreneur, writer and philanthropist who served as the fourth president of Slovakia from 2014 to 2019. He ran as an Independent politician, independent candidate in the 2014 Slova ...

. She was elected vice-president of the party at its constituent assembly on 28 September 2019. Žitňanská ran from fourth place of For the People candidate in the

2020 Slovak parliamentary election Parliamentary elections were held in Slovakia on 29 February 2020 to elect all 150 members of the National Council. The populist Ordinary People and Independent Personalities–NOVA–Christian Union–Change from Below (OĽaNO–NOVA–KÚ� ...

, receiving 50,646 preferential votes and moved to third place. Upon the dissolution of the parliamentary club, Žitňanská continued to work as an unaffiliated member of the party until 31 March 2023, when she resigned from the party together with deputy Juraj Šeliga. Both Žitňanská and Šeliga joined Democrats upon leaving For the People, with the former being an unclassified member of the Democrats in the National Council of the Slovakia. Democrats won 2.93% of the votes in the parliamentary elections in September 2023 and did not make it to the council; Žitňanská received 19,686 preferential votes.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Zitnanska, Jana 1974 births Living people Politicians from Bratislava New Majority (Slovakia) MEPs Women MEPs for Slovakia MEPs for Slovakia 2014–2019 21st-century Slovak women politicians Members of the National Council (Slovakia) 2010-2012 Members of the National Council (Slovakia) 2012–2016 Members of the National Council (Slovakia) 2020–2023 Women members of the National Council (Slovakia)