Mirsad Hodžić (Serbian Cyrillic: Мирсад Хоџић; born 1956) is a Serbian politician from the country's Bosniak community. He served in the National Assembly of Serbia from 2020 to 2022 as a member of the Party of Democratic Action of Sandžak (SDA).

Mirsad Hodžić
Мирсад Хоџић
Member of the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia
In office
3 August 2020 – 1 August 2022
Personal details
Born1956
NationalityBosniak
Political partyParty of Democratic Action of Sandžak
OccupationPolitician

Private career edit

Hodžić lives in Sjenica, in the Sandžak region of Serbia. He is a textile engineer and has served as director of the Sjenica Institute for Sports and Recreation.[1][2]

Politician edit

Hodžić is a longtime SDA activist. In 2002, he led a protest in Sjenica against local police chief Milan Nedić, whom he accused of leading a campaign of organized terror against Bosniaks of the Sandžak in prior years. He also called for a multi-ethnic police force in the region, noting the low representation of Bosniaks in the existing organization.[3]

He appeared in the eighteenth position on the SDA-led List for Sandžak in the 2007 Serbian parliamentary election.[4] The list won two seats in the national assembly, and he was not chosen for a mandate.[5] (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 distributed out of numerical order. Hodžić could have been assigned a seat despite his low position on the list, though ultimately he was not.)[6] He was later given the seventeenth position on the successor Bosniak List for a European Sandžak in the 2008 Serbian parliamentary election and again did not receive a mandate when the list won two seats.[7][8]

Parliamentarian edit

Hodžić received the second position on the SDA's list in the 2020 Serbian parliamentary election. By this time, Serbia's electoral laws had been reformed such that mandates were awarded in numerical order to candidates on successful lists.[9] The SDA won three seats, and Hodžić was elected. The Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) won a landslide majority victory overall, and the SDA was part of the small opposition in the parliament that followed.

During his term in parliament, Hodžić was a member of the committee on the rights of the child; a deputy member of the committee for human and minority rights and gender equality and the committee for spatial planning, transport, infrastructure, and telecommunications; and a member of the parliamentary friendship groups with Albania, Algeria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Montenegro, Norway, Slovenia, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America.[10] He was not a candidate for re-election in 2022.

Local politics edit

Hodžić appeared in the lead position on the SDA's list for the Sjenica municipal assembly in the 2020 Serbian local elections, which were held concurrently with the national assembly vote.[11] The SDA won a plurality victory with ten out of thirty-nine seats, but the second-place Justice and Reconciliation Party (SPP) ultimately formed a coalition government, and the SDA served in opposition.[12][13] Hodžić resigned from the local assembly on 11 June 2021.[14]

References edit

  1. ^ Službeni Glasnik (Općinski Sjenica), Volume 21 Number 39 (23 October 2020), p. 176.
  2. ^ MIRSAD HODŽIĆ (МИРСАД ХОЏИЋ), Archived 2021-10-27 at the Wayback Machine, National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia, accessed 2 August 2023.
  3. ^ "Muslim party protests over 'state terror' against Sandzak Bosniaks," British Broadcasting Corporation Monitoring European – Political, 8 August 2002 (Source: Radio Novi Pazar in Serbo-Croat 1400 gmt 8 Aug 02).
  4. ^ Избори за народне посланике Народне скупштине одржани 21. јануара и 8. фебрауара 2007. године – ИЗБОРНЕ ЛИСТЕ (10 Коалиција Листа за Санџак др Сулејман Угљанин), Republic Election Commission, Republic of Serbia, accessed 2 August 2023.
  5. ^ 14 February 2007 legislature, National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia, accessed 2 August 2023.
  6. ^ 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.
  7. ^ Избори за народне посланике Народне скупштине одржани 11. маја 2008. године – ИЗБОРНЕ ЛИСТЕ (6 БОШЊАЧКА ЛИСТА ЗА ЕВРОПСКИ САНЏАК - ДР СУЛЕЈМАН УГЉАНИН), Republic Election Commission, Republic of Serbia, accessed 10 July 2021.
  8. ^ 11 June 2008 legislature, National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia, accessed 2 August 2023.
  9. ^ ИЗБОРИ ЗА НАРОДНЕ ПОСЛАНИКЕ НАРОДНЕ СКУПШТИНЕ, 21. ЈУН 2020. ГОДИНЕ – Изборне листе (11 СДА Санџака – др Сулејман Угљанин SDA Sandžaka – dr. Sulejman Ugljanin), Republic Election Commission, Republic of Serbia, accessed 16 June 2020.
  10. ^ MIRSAD HODŽIĆ (МИРСАД ХОЏИЋ), Archived 2021-10-27 at the Wayback Machine, National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia, accessed 2 August 2023.
  11. ^ Službeni Glasnik (Općinski Sjenica), Volume 21 Number 23 (6 June 2020), p. 13.
  12. ^ Službeni Glasnik (Općinski Sjenica), Volume 21 Number 26 (22 June 2020), p. 2-3.
  13. ^ S. Novosel, "Munib Mujagić novi predsednik opštine Sjenica", Danas, 21 August 2020, accessed 2 May 2022.
  14. ^ Službeni Glasnik (Općinski Sjenica), Volume 22 Number 10 (23 June 2021), p. 7.