Gordana Pop Lazić in National Assembly during a shoe throwing incident, 26.11.2009

Gordana Pop Lazić (also rendered as: Gordana Pop-Lazić; Serbian Cyrillic: Гордана Поп Лазић; born 5 April 1956), is a former politician in Serbia. She was at one time a prominent figure in the far-right Serbian Radical Party, serving at different times as a cabinet minister, a member of the National Assembly of Serbia, and mayor of the Belgrade municipality of Zemun.

Early life and private career

Pop Lazić was born in Belgrade, in what was then the People's Republic of Serbia in the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia. She is a graduate of the University of Belgrade Faculty of Law. She worked for the municipal assembly of Zemun in the 1990s, serving as secretary of the assembly from 1996 to 1998.[1]

Politician

Cabinet minister

Serbian and Yugoslavian politics in the 1990s were dominated by the Socialist Party of Serbia under the authoritarian rule of Slobodan Milošević. On 24 March 1998, during the early period of the Kosovo War, the Socialists formed a coalition government in Serbia that also included the Radicals and the Yugoslav Left. Pop Lazić was appointed to cabinet as a representative of the Radical Party, serving for two-and-a-half years as minister of public administration and local self-government in the government of Mirko Marjanović.

Pop Lazić stood down from cabinet on 24 October 2000, following Slobodan Milošević's defeat in the 2000 Yugoslavian presidential election, an event that precipitated a broad transformation of Serbian and Yugoslavian politics. She was also defeated in her bid for election to the Chamber of Citizens in the Assembly of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in the concurrent parliamentary election.[2]

She sought election to the City Assembly of Belgrade in the 2000 Serbian local elections, running in Zemun's seventh division, and was defeated by Miloš Milutinović of the Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS).

Parliamentarian

Following Milošević's defeat in the Yugoslavian presidential election, a new Serbian parliamentary election was called for December 2000. The entire country was counted a single electoral division; Pop Lazić was given the twenty-third position on the Radical Party's list and was awarded a mandate when the list won twenty-three seats.[3][4] (From 2000 to 2011, mandates in Serbian parliamentary elections were awarded to sponsoring parties or coalitions rather than individual candidates, and it was common practice for the mandates to be assigned out of numerical order. Pop Lazić's specific position on the list had no bearing on whether or not she received a mandate.)[5] The DOS won a landslide victory in the election, and the Radicals served in opposition.

Pop Lazić was promoted to the symbolically significant fourth position on the Radical Party's list in the 2003 parliamentary election. The list won eighty-two out of 250 mandates, and she was again selected for her party's assembly delegation.[6][7] Although the Radicals won more seats than any other party, they fell well short of a majority and continued to serve in opposition. Pop Lazić was chosen as a vice-president (i.e., deputy speaker) of the assembly in February 2004.[8] She was also a member of Serbia's delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) from June 2006 to June 2007.[9]

Pop Lazić again appeared in the fourth position on the Radical Party's list in both the 2007 and 2008 parliamentary elections.[10][11] She did not receive a mandate on the former occasion but did so on the latter.[12][13] While the results of the 2008 election were initially inconclusive, the For a European Serbia alliance ultimately formed a new coalition government with the Socialists, and the Radicals again served in opposition.

The Radical Party experienced a serious split later in 2008, with several members joining the more moderate Serbian Progressive Party under the leadership of Tomislav Nikolić and Aleksandar Vučić. Pop Lazić remained with the Radicals.

She served as deputy leader of the Radical Party's parliamentary group from 2008 to October 2009, when she was replaced by Aleksandar Martinović.[14] In November 2009, she attracted some notoriety by throwing a shoe at Democratic Party parliamentarian Gordana Čomić, who was then chairing a legislative debate.[15] She did not seek re-election in 2012 and has not sought a return to the assembly since then.

City of Belgrade

Pop Lazić was given the second position on the Radical Party's list for the City Assembly of Belgrade in the 2004 Serbian local elections and was elected when the list won twenty-seven seats.[16][17][18] The Radicals served in opposition after the election. She was not a candidate at the city level in 2008.

She led the Radical Party's list for the Zemun municipal assembly election in 2004, which was held concurrently with the city election. The Radicals won a plurality victory with twenty-six out of fifty-seven seats, and Pop Lazić was subsequently chosen as mayor with support from the Socialists and the Strength of Serbia Movement.[19][20][21] She served in this role in the next four years. She again led the Radical list to a narrow victory in Zemun in the 2008 local elections, although she neither continued as mayor nor took a seat in the local assembly afterwards.[22][23][24]

The Radicals initially continued in power in Zemun after the 2008 election, but subsequent political upheaval (including the split in the Radical Party) led to new municipal elections taking place in 2009. Pop Lazić received the third position on the Radical list and was given a mandate when the list finished in third place with six seats.[25][26][27] She did not seek re-election in 2013 and has not returned to political life since this time.

Electoral record

Local (City Assembly of Belgrade)

2000 City of Belgrade election
Zemun Division VII[28]
Dušan Jaksimović Socialist Party of Serbia–Yugoslav Left
Milan Lazarević Serbian Renewal Movement
Miloš Milutinović Democratic Opposition of Serbia Elected
Gordana Pop Lazić Serbian Radical Party

References

  1. ↑ GORDANA POP-LAZIĆ, Otvoreni Parlament, accessed 11 June 2021.
  2. ↑ Pop Lazić appeared in the second position on the Radical Party's electoral list in New Belgrade (which included Zemun), behind party leader Vojislav Šešelj. The party won only one seat in the division, and Pop Lazić was not elected. See Velika Srbija [Serbian Radical Party publication], Volume 11 Number 1201, p. 7; and ИЗБОРИ 2000: ВЕЋЕ РЕПУБЛИКА И ВЕЋЕ ГРАЂАНА САВЕЗНЕ СКУПШТИНЕ, Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Department of Statistics (2000), p. 41.
  3. ↑ Избори за народне посланике Народне скупштине одржани 23. децембра 2000. године и 10. јануара 2001. године, ИЗБОРНЕ ЛИСТЕ (Српска радикална странка – др Војислав Шешељ), Republika Srbija - Republička izborna komisija, accessed 11 June 2021.
  4. ↑ PRVA KONSTITUTIVNA SEDNICA, 22.01.2001., Otvoreni Parlament, accessed 11 June 2021.
  5. ↑ Serbia's Law on the Election of Representatives (2000) Archived 2021-06-03 at the Wayback Machine 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.
  6. ↑ Избори за народне посланике Народне скупштине одржани 28. децембра 2003. године, ИЗБОРНЕ ЛИСТЕ (СРПСКА РАДИКАЛНА СТРАНКА - др ВОЈИСЛАВ ШЕШЕЉ), Republika Srbija - Republička izborna komisija, accessed 14 May 2021.
  7. ↑ PRVA SEDNICA, 27.01.2004., Otvoreni Parlament, accessed 11 June 2021.
  8. ↑ GORDANA POP-LAZIĆ, Otvoreni Parlament, accessed 11 June 2021.
  9. ↑ Ms Gordana POP LAZIĆ, Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, accessed 11 June 2021.
  10. ↑ Избори за народне посланике Народне скупштине одржани 21. јануара и 8. фебрауара 2007. године, ИЗБОРНЕ ЛИСТЕ (Српска радикална странка - др Војислав Шешељ), Republika Srbija - Republička izborna komisija, accessed 14 May 2021.
  11. ↑ Избори за народне посланике Народне скупштине одржани 11. маја 2008. године, ИЗБОРНЕ ЛИСТЕ (СРПСКА РАДИКАЛНА СТРАНКА - Др ВОЈИСЛАВ ШЕШЕЉ), Republika Srbija - Republička izborna komisija, accessed 14 April 2021.
  12. ↑ 14 February 2007 legislature, National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia, accessed 14 May 2021.
  13. ↑ 11 June 2008 legislature, National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia, accessed 14 May 2021.
  14. ↑ M.R. Milenković, "Smenjena Gordana Pop Lazić", Danas, 9 October 2009, accessed 11 June 2021.
  15. ↑ "Pop Lazić gađala cipelom predsedavajuću", Radio Television of Vojvodina, 26 November 2009, accessed 11 June 2021.
  16. ↑ Službeni List (Grada Beograda), Volume 48 Number 24 (8 September 2004), p. 5.
  17. ↑ Službeni List (Grada Beograda), Volume 48 Number 27 (20 September 2004), p. 2.
  18. ↑ In the 2004 local elections, the first one-third of mandates were awarded to candidates on successful lists in numerical order. See Law on Local Elections Archived 2021-06-02 at the Wayback Machine, Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia, No. 33/2002; made available via LegislationOnline, accessed 29 May 2021.
  19. ↑ Službeni List (Grada Beograda), Volume 48 Number 24 (8 September 2004), p. 47.
  20. ↑ Službeni List (Grada Beograda), Volume 48 Number 28 (21 September 2004), p. 3.
  21. ↑ "Gordana Pop-Lazić predsednik SO Zemun" [sic], B92, 4 November 2004. Pop Lazić's position was misidentified in the title but not in the main body of the article.
  22. ↑ Službeni List (Grada Beograda), Volume 52 Number 13 (30 April 2008), p. 15.
  23. ↑ Službeni List (Grada Beograda), Volume 52 Number 15 (12 May 2008), p. 4.
  24. ↑ Službeni List (Grada Beograda), Volume 52 Number 19 (12 June 2008), p. 4.
  25. ↑ Službeni List (Grada Beograda), Volume 53 Number 25 (27 May 2009), p. 3.
  26. ↑ Službeni List (Grada Beograda), Volume 53 Number 30 (11 June 2009), p. 24.
  27. ↑ Službeni List (Grada Beograda), Volume 53 Number 38 (29 July 2009), p. 6.
  28. ↑ Službeni List (Grada Beograda), Volume 46 Number 13 (15 September 2000), p. 426; Službeni List (Grada Beograda), Volume 46 Number 15 (20 October 2000), p. 469-470.
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