Aleksandar Marton (; born 24 February 1976) is a politician in Serbia. He has served in the National Assembly of Serbia, the Assembly of Vojvodina, and the Zrenjanin city assembly as a member of the League of Social Democrats of Vojvodina (LSV).
Early life and career
Marton was born and raised in Zrenjanin, Socialist Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, in what was then the Socialist Republic of Serbia in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. He studied international relations at the University of Belgrade Faculty of Political Sciences before returning to his hometown.
Political career
Early activism
Marton was a member of the opposition group Otpor! and took part in protests against Slobodan Milošević's government. In May 2000, it was reported that he and three other Otpor! members had been arrested and detained for several hours for handing out leaflets in Zrenjanin. He was first elected to the Zrenjanin assembly in the 2000 Serbian municipal elections, held after the fall of Milošević, and has been re-elected in every municipal election since then.
Marton appeared on the LSV's Together for Tolerance electoral list in the 2003 Serbian parliamentary election. The list did not cross the electoral threshold to win representation in the assembly. He served as vice-president (i.e., deputy speaker) of the Zrenjanin city assembly from 2004 to 2006.
Member of the National Assembly
The LSV contested the 2007 parliamentary election in an alliance with the Liberal Democratic Party. Marton received the 119th position on their list and was selected for a mandate after the list won fifteen seats. (From 2000 to 2011, Serbian parliamentary mandates were awarded to sponsoring parties or coalitions rather than to individual candidates, and it was common practice for the mandates to be awarded out of numerical order. Marton's position on the list had no bearing on whether or not he received a mandate.)
Following the election, an unstable coalition government was formed under the leadership of the Democratic Party (DS), the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS), and G17 Plus (G17+). The LSV served in opposition. In October 2007, Marton criticized the government's new legislation for Vojvodina, saying that it did not go far enough in granting autonomy to the province. He was particularly critical of a clause that would have required provincial bodies to submit any decisions to the corresponding ministry within twenty-four hours; he was quoted as saying, "Any deadlines in this regard are unacceptable to us, because they are an indication that the central authorities are treating Vojvodina like poor students who have to have their homework checked by their parents. That is a bad message for Vojvodina." He later opposed a proposal to divide Vojvodina into five regions, describing it as a "plan for the division and fragmentation of Vojvodina and a denial of its autonomy."
Municipal politician
The DS–DSS coalition fell apart in early 2008, and a new election was called for later in the year. The LSV contested this election in an alliance with the DS on an electoral list called For a European Serbia; Marton received the 117th position on the list. During the campaign, he sarcastically accused the LDP of stealing his party's policies on provincial autonomy. The list won 102 mandates, but Marton was not selected for a new term in the assembly. He was also included on the LSV's Together for Vojvodina list in the concurrent 2008 Vojvodina provincial election but here too was not selected for a mandate. He was, however, elected as an LSV delegate to the Zrenjanin city assembly and was subsequently chosen as the assembly's president (i.e., speaker), a position he held for the next four years.