SNS official elected parliament speaker

SNS official elected parliament speaker

Gojković is a member of the SNS presidency and she held office as the mayor of Novi Sad from 2004 through 2008.

She entered politics as a member of the People's Radical Party (NRS), which later joined the Serb Radical Party (SRS), and after the split in the SRS in 2009, she went on to form the People's Party (NP) that she headed until its dissolution in 2012.

In 2010, the NP joined the United Regions of Serbia (URS) and Gojković was elected as one out of two NS MPs on the URS list in May 2012. In late 2012, she joined the SNS.

The new Serbian parliament will also have six deputy speakers, and the candidates are Veroljub Arsić and Igor Bečić of the SNS, Democratic Party's (DS) Gordana Čomić, New Democratic Party's (NDS) Ninoslav Stojadinović, Social Democratic Party of Serbia's (SDPS) Vladimir Marinkovi, and Party of United Pensioners of Serbia (PUPS) MP Konstantin Arsenović.

"Most successful"

Veroljub Arsić, an authorized representative of the ruling SNS, told parliament today during the debate that Maja Gojković will be "the most successful parliament speaker."

Gojković, who is the only candidate for the position, "will improve the reputation not only of the Serbian parliament but also all its members," MPs heard.

"Gojković will have to work very hard to improve the reputation of the parliament and the MPs and the quality of debate, Arsić said, adding that she will have to "beat, not just reach, the standards set by the outgoing Speaker Nebojša Stefanović, and it will not be easy."

Opposition Democratic Party (DS) leader Dragan Đilas said that the decision saying that one third of the MPs in parliament is sufficient for the body to hold discussions was possibly wrong to make and that perhaps it should have been two-thirds.

Đilas said that he would rather not say much about the parliament speaker candidate and right now, it would be unfair to talk about Novi Sad and scandals in connection with her .

“We live in a country where people are in fear and are not allowed to speak, in which children are killed in primary schools; where it is normal to say to people who have a minority opinion whatever one wants and to qualify them in whichever way one wants; where nobody is shocked when they read that 500 people get employed with a public enterprise on the day before the election ... we live in a country symbolized by Maja Gojković,” Đilas said.

The DS leader said that it has become "normal to see Kristijan Golubović, who has spent half of his life in prison, appearing in all media and speaking freely about people in the opposition and calling them thieves."

“Let's stop sending messages of hatred, aggression and hostility and members of the DS deputy group will not vote for Gojković. We will carefully monitor her activities and strive to have the (parliament's) reputation, tarnished by the idea of rotating the speaker, regained. We expect the new speaker to prove our current fear about what the parliament would be like completely unjustified,” Đilas said.