Branislav Jovanović (; born 23 November 1955) is a politician in Serbia. He served in the National Assembly of Serbia from 2007 to 2013 as a member of G17 Plus and the United Regions of Serbia. He also served in the Yugoslavian Federal Assembly and held prominent municipal office in Niš.
Early life and private career
Jovanović was born in Niš, in what was then the People's Republic of Serbia in the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia. He is a graduate of the University of Niš Faculty of Law and began working at the textile company NITEX in 1980. He served as general director of the company from 2000 to 2003, after having been selected for this role by its workers during the upheavals that took place after the fall of Slobodan Milošević's administration.
Political career
During the Milošević administration
Jovanović led the local organization of the Serbian Renewal Movement (Srpski pokret obnove, SPO) in Niš during the 1990s and was a prominent opponent of Milošević.
The SPO participated in the 1996 local elections as part of the Zajedno (Together) coalition of opposition parties. When the first official returns showed that Zajedno had been defeated in Niš (as well as Belgrade and other major cities), several opposition figures charged electoral fraud and organized what became a series of major protests throughout the country. Jovanović was a leader of the protests in Niš and urged opposition supporters to remain peaceful, charging that the Milošević government was seeking a pretext for a crackdown. The Serbian government ultimately recognized the victories of Zajedno in Niš and elsewhere; as a result, Zoran Živković of the Democratic Party (Demokratska stranka, DS) became mayor of Niš while Jovanović became leader of its executive committee. In February 1997, he announced a comprehensive re-organization of the local administration, saying that local government agencies and companies would be headed by persons "who did not steal or conclude harmful contracts, but who are experts, responsible, ethical and replaceable."
Jovanović also contested the 1996 Yugoslavian parliamentary election (which took place concurrently with the local elections) as a Zajedno candidate and became part of the alliance's delegation to the Chamber of Citizens after it won two out of five seats in the Niš division. The Socialist Party of Serbia and its allies won this election, and the Zajedno members served in opposition. Jovanović appears to have resigned from the federal assembly once he received an executive position in the local government of Niš.
Jovanović served on Niš's electoral commission during the 1997 Serbian parliamentary election and expressed concerns about the transparency of the election to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) monitoring mission.
In July 1999, in the aftermath of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) bombing of Yugoslavia, Jovanović led the Niš municipal assembly in endorsing a motion demanding Slobodan Milošević's resignation as president of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Jovanović described social and economic conditions in Niš as catastrophic during this time, saying, "Before the war, there were 40,000 unemployed and 30,000 on paid leave. Now we have another 10,000 unemployed."
While several local alliances between the DS and SPO fell apart soon after the 1996 elections (most notably in Belgrade), Živković and Jovanović generally kept their alliance against the Milošević administration intact until 2000. In June of that year, they led a sit-in demonstration in support of eleven opposition activists and journalists who had been detained at a demonstration.
The 2000 Yugoslavian general election was a watershed moment in Serbian political history, bringing about the fall of the Milošević administration and a victory for the Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS) alliance. The SPO did not, however, participate in this victory; it ran its own electoral list and won only a single federal seat. Jovanović again ran for a seat in the Chamber of Citizens and was defeated when the SPO failed to cross the electoral threshold in Niš. He also lost his constituency seat in the Niš assembly in the city elections.
After the fall of Milošević
Several prominent SPO members in Niš, including Jovanović, resigned from the party in October 2000 to start a new organization called the People's Party of Justice under the leadership of Borivoje Borović.