Vlatko Rajković (Serbian Cyrillic: Влатко Рајковић; born 1959) is a politician in Serbia. He was the mayor of Kragujevac from 2000 to 2004 and also served in the Assembly of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the successor Assembly of Serbia and Montenegro in the same period. A member of the Democratic Party (Demokratska stranka, DS) as an elected official, Rajković joined the New Party (Nova stranka, NOVA) in 2013. Vlatko Rajković joined PSG (Movement of the free citizens) in December 2022. and currently is head of local branch of PSG for Kragujevac and region of Central Serbia.

Early life and private career

Rajković was born in Kragujevac, in what was then the People's Republic of Serbia in the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia. He was raised in the city, graduated from the University of Belgrade Faculty of Dentistry, and afterward operated his own dental practice.[1]

Politician

Early years (1990–2000)

Rajković was a founding member of the DS in Kragujevac when multi-party democracy was reintroduced to Serbia in 1990. He ran for the party in the city's second division in the 1990 Serbian parliamentary election and was defeated by Dragan Jevtović of the Serbian Renewal Movement (Srpski pokret obnove, SPO).

Serbia subsequently adopted a system of proportional representation for parliamentary elections, and Rajković appeared in the tenth position on the DS's electoral list for Krajugjevac in the 1992 election.[2] The list did not cross the electoral threshold to win any mandates in the division.[3] He later appeared in the twenty-fourth position on the party's list for the 1993 parliamentary election; the list won three seats, and he again did not receive a mandate.[4][5] (From 1992 to 2000, Serbia's electoral law stipulated that one-third of parliamentary mandates would be assigned to candidates from successful lists in numerical order, while the remaining two-thirds would be distributed amongst other candidates on the lists at the discretion of the sponsoring parties.[6] It was common practice for the latter mandates to be awarded out of order. Rajković could have been given a mandate despite his low position on the list, but he was not.) The Socialist Party of Serbia (Socijalistička partija Srbije, SPS) governed Serbia in this period, and the DS was one of a number of opposition parties seeking its overthrow.

The DS contested the 1996 local elections an alliance with the SPO and other opposition parties known as Zajedno (English: Together). The alliance won a majority victory in Kragujevac; unlike the situation in other major cities, the SPS did not contest the opposition's victory. SPO representative Veroljub Stevanović was chosen as mayor, and Rajković became deputy mayor.[7] The Zajedno coalition fell apart at the republic level and in Belgrade in late 1997, but it held together in Kragujevac for the full term. In July 1999, Rajković helped lead the Kragujevac assembly in passing a motion calling for the resignation of Yugoslavian president Slobodan Milošević.[8] In December of the same year, he introduced a motion calling for Milošević to be held accountable for war crimes committed in the territory of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.[9]

Mayor and federal parliamentarian (2000–04)

In 2000, the DS joined a broad and ideologically diverse coalition of opposition parties called the Democratic Opposition of Serbia (Demokratska opozicija Srbije, DOS). Rajković appeared in the lead position on the DOS's list in the Kragujevac division for the Yugoslavian assembly's Chamber of Citizens in the 2000 Yugoslavian general election and was elected when the list won two mandates in the division.[10][11] Slobodan Milošević was defeated by DOS candidate Vojislav Koštunica in the concurrent presidential election, an event that prompted widespread political changes in Serbia and Yugoslavia; Rajković took part in the October 5 uprising that definitively removed Milošević from power. The DOS formed a coalition government with the Socialist People's Party of Montenegro in the Yugoslavian parliament, and Rajković served as a supporter of the administration.

He was also re-elected to the Kragujevac city assembly in the concurrent 2000 Serbian local elections, in which the DOS won a somewhat unexpected majority victory over both the SPS and Stevanović's alliance. After the election, he was chosen as president of the assembly, a position that was at the time equivalent to mayor. Kragujevac faced an economic downtown in the early 2000s, and in 2003 Rajković faced significant protests from the Workers' Resistance movement, which called on the government to fulfill its responsibility to pay the overdue salaries of Zastava Automobiles employees.[12] Later in the same year, facing increased protests from different city collectives, he began an unusual hunger strike against what he described as the "immoral and illegal demands" of the protesters.[13]

The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was reconstituted as the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro in early 2003. The new country had a unicameral assembly with members nominated by the republican parliaments of Serbia and Montenegro; only sitting members of the republican parliaments and members of the former Yugoslavian parliament were eligible to serve. Rajković was chosen by the DS for a mandate in the new assembly.[14]

He received the fifty-second position on the DS's electoral list in the 2003 Serbian parliamentary election.[15] The entire country was by this time counted as a single electoral district, and from 2000 to 2011 mandates in Serbian parliamentary elections were distributed to candidates on successful lists at the discretion of the sponsoring parties or coalitions, irrespective of numerical order.[16] Rajković was not given a seat in the Serbian parliament after the election, and his mandate in the federal parliament was not renewed in 2004.

Rajković was a close ally of DS leader and Serbian president Zoran Đinđić, who was assassinated in March 2003. He later supported Zoran Živković's bid to lead the DS in 2004; Živković was defeated by Boris Tadić.[17]

Since 2004

Serbia's local election system was reformed in 2004, such that mayors were directly elected and local assemblies were chosen under proportional representation. Veroljub Stevanović's Together for Kragujevac coalition won the assembly election, and Stevanović was returned to mayor's office. Rajković did not seek re-election as mayor but was instead re-elected to the assembly when the DS list won eighteen mandates. He led the party's assembly group in the term that followed.[18][19]

The DS and the SPO once again united for the 2008 Serbian local elections in Kragujevac under the banner of the For a European Serbia coalition. Rajković appeared on the alliance's list and took a mandate when it won fourteen seats.[20][21][22] He resigned his seat on 8 April 2009 and has not returned to electoral politics since this time.[23]

A frequent critic of Boris Tadić's leadership of the DS, Rajković left the party in 2013 and joined the breakaway New Party under Zoran Živković.[24]

Electoral record

Local (City of Kragujevac)

2000 Kragujevac city assembly election: Member for Division 41
CandidateParty
Vlatko Rajković (***WINNER***)Democratic Opposition of Serbia (Affiliation: Democratic Party)
Dragan JevtovićTogether for Kragujevac
Dragan MilanovićSerbian Radical Party
Slobodan TanasijevićSocialist Party of Serbia–Yugoslav Left
Total
Source: [25]

National Assembly of Serbia

1990 Serbian parliamentary election: Member for Kragujevac II
CandidateParty
Milun BabićNew Democracy–Movement for Serbia
Slobodan BabićSocialist Party of Serbia
Miroslav BimbašićDemocratic Political Party "Roma" Kragujevac
Živomir BogdanovićSerbian National Renewal
Jelena VukovićGreen Party
Dragan Jevtović (***WINNER***)Serbian Renewal Movement
Dragoslav MarkovićCitizens' Group
Dragan Zule PetrovićLiberal Party (Liberalna stranka)
Vlatko RajkovićDemocratic Party
Jovan SavićPeople's Radical Party
Dragoljub StojanovićUnion of Reform Forces of Yugoslavia
Milan TišovićCitizens' Group
Total
Source: [26]

References

  1. ↑ Predsednik Skupštine grada Kragujevca, Archived 10 August 2004 at the Wayback Machine, City of Kragujevac, accessed 9 April 2022.
  2. ↑ Избори за народне посланике Народне скупштине одржани 20. и 27. децембра 1992. године и 3. јануара 1993. године – ЗБИРНЕ ИЗБОРНЕ ЛИСТЕ (3 Крагујевац), Republika Srbija - Republička izborna komisija, accessed 2 July 2021.
  3. ↑ Избори за народне посланике Народне скупштине одржани 20. и 27. децембра 1992. године и 3. јануара 1993. године – РЕЗУЛТАТИ ИЗБОРА (Извештај о укупним резултатима избора за народне посланике у Народну скупштину Републике Србије, одржаних 20. и 27. децембра 1992. године и 3. јануара 1993. године), Republika Srbija - Republička izborna komisija, accessed 2 July 2021.
  4. ↑ Избори за народне посланике Народне скупштине одржани 19. и 26. децембра 1993. године и 5. јануара 1994. године – ЗБИРНЕ ИЗБОРНЕ ЛИСТЕ (3 Крагујевац), Republika Srbija - Republička izborna komisija, accessed 2 July 2021.
  5. ↑ Избори за народне посланике Народне скупштине одржани 19. и 26. децембра 1993. године и 5. јануара 1994. године – РЕЗУЛТАТИ ИЗБОРА (Извештај о укупним резултатима избора за народне посланике у Народну скупштину Републике Србије, одржаних 19. и 26. децембра 1993. године и 5. јануара 1994. године), Republika Srbija - Republička izborna komisija, accessed 2 July 2021.
  6. ↑ Guide to the Early Election, Ministry of Information of the Republic of Serbia, December 1992, made available by the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, accessed 14 July 2017.
  7. ↑ Alexandra Niksic, "Tense standoff in Serbian town between demonstrators and police," Agence France-Presse, 23 January 1997.
  8. ↑ "Central Serbian town passes anti-Milosevic declaration," British Broadcasting Corporation Monitoring Newsfile, 16 July 1999.
  9. ↑ "Serbian opposition branch calls for Milosevic to account for war crimes," British Broadcasting Corporation Monitoring European – Political (Source: Beta news agency, Belgrade, in Serbo-Croat 1139 gmt 14 Dec 99).
  10. ↑ "Jovanović u Jagodini, Beko u Kragujevcu", Glas javnosti, 30 August 2000, accessed 4 April 2022.
  11. ↑ ИЗБОРИ 2000: ВЕЋЕ РЕПУБЛИКА И ВЕЋЕ ГРАЂАНА САВЕЗНЕ СКУПШТИНЕ, Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Department of Statistics (2000), p. 78. For this election, one half of mandates were awarded to candidates on successful lists in numerical order.
  12. ↑ "Serbian police stop Zastava workers from storming Kragujevac assembly," British Broadcasting Corporation Monitoring European, 17 February 2003 (Source: Radio Belgrade in Serbian 1400 gmt 17 Feb 03).
  13. ↑ M. Đošović and M. Luković, "Gladuje i gradonačelnik", Novosti, 26 August 2003, accessed 9 April 2022.
  14. ↑ "Poslanici nove države", Glas Javnosti, 20 February 2003, accessed 31 May 2018.
  15. ↑ Избори за народне посланике Народне скупштине одржани 28. децембра 2003. године – ИЗБОРНЕ ЛИСТЕ (5. ДЕМОКРАТСКА СТРАНКА - БОРИС ТАДИЋ) Republika Srbija - Republička izborna komisija, accessed 2 July 2021.
  16. ↑ 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.
  17. ↑ "Report sees 'interesting' battle ahead for deputy chairman posts in Serbia's DS," British Broadcasting Corporation Monitoring European, 6 February 2004 (Source: Politika, Belgrade, in Serbian 4 Feb 04).
  18. ↑ Lokalni Izbori – Republika Srbija; Lokalni Izbori 2004; Bureau of Statistics, Republic of Serbia; pp. 16, 80.
  19. ↑ SPISAK ODBORNIKA SKUPŠTINE GRADA KRAGUJEVCA, Archived 11 February 2007 at the Wayback Machine, City of Kragujevac, accessed 9 April 2022.
  20. ↑ Službeni List (Grada Kragujevca), Volume 18 Number 12 (30 April 2008), p. 4. He appeared in the sixty-fourth position on the list, which was mostly alphabetical. For the 2008 local elections, all mandates were assigned to candidates on successful lists at the discretion of the sponsoring parties or coalitions. See Law on Local Elections (2007), Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia, No. 129/2007); made available via LegislationOnline, accessed 29 May 2021.
  21. ↑ Službeni List (Grada Kragujevca), Volume 28 Number 14 (12 May 2008), pp. 1-15.
  22. ↑ Službeni List (Grada Kragujevca), Volume 28 Number 16 (27 May 2008), p. 13.
  23. ↑ Službeni List (Grada Kragujevca), Volume 29 Number 10 (8 April 2009), p. 1.
  24. ↑ "Živković sakuplja potpise za registraciju Nove stranke", Blic (Source: Tanjug), 14 February 2013, accessed 9 April 2022.
  25. ↑ Kandidati za izbor odbornika u Skupstini grada Kragujevca, NGO Millennium, accessed 4 April 2000; SPISAK ODBORNIKA – SKUPŠTINE GRADA KRAGUJEVCA, Archived 2004-04-28 at the Wayback Machine, City of Kragujevac, accessed 9 April 2022.
  26. ↑ Избори за народне посланике Народне скупштине одржани 9. и 23. децембра 1990. године (Листе кандидата за народне посланике Народне скупштине Републике Србије, по изборним јединицама), Republika Srbija - Republička izborna komisija, accessed 9 April 2022; Избори за народне посланике Народне скупштине одржани 9. и 23. децембра 1990. године (Извештај о укупним резултатима избора за народне посланике у Народну скупштину Републике Србије 9. и 23. децембра 1990. године), Republika Srbija - Republička izborna komisija, accessed 9 April 2022.
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