Mirko Čikiriz

Mirko Čikiriz (Serbian Cyrillic: Мирко Чикириз; born 21 January 1963) is a politician in Serbia. He served in the National Assembly of Serbia from 2008 to 2016 as a member of the Serbian Renewal Movement (Srpski pokret obnove, SPO). When the SPO split in 2017, he joined the breakaway Movement for the Restoration of the Kingdom of Serbia (Pokret obnove Kraljevine Srbije, POKS). Čikiriz is now a member of the Kragujevac city assembly.

Early life and career

Čikiriz was born in Guča, Lučani, in what was then the People's Republic of Serbia in the People's Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. He graduated from the University of Kragujevac Faculty of Law in 1988, was called to the bar in 2005, and worked in law in Kragujevac. From 1998 to 2008, he was the legal representative and head of legal service for Takovo osiguranje in the city.[1]

Politician

Early years

Čikiriz became politically active in the early 1990s and became a member of the SPO board in Kragujevac in 1996. In 1997–98, he was secretary of the municipal assembly and the municipal administration in Lapovo. During this time, he was also served as president of the SPO's board in Kragujevac and was a member of the party presidency for the Šumadija District.[2]

He was elected to his last term in the Kragujevac city assembly (prior to 2020) in the 2008 Serbian local elections, which the SPO contested on an electoral list led by the Democratic Party.[3][4]

Member of the National Assembly

Čikiriz was an SPO candidate for the national assembly in the parliamentary elections of 2000,[5] 2003,[6] and 2007.[7] He was not elected on any of these occasions. The SPO list did not cross the electoral threshold for representation in the assembly in 2000 or 2007. In 2003, the SPO ran a combined list with New Serbia that won twenty-two seats. From 2000 to 2011, mandates were awarded at the discretion of successful parties, and it was common practice for the mandates to be assigned out of numerical order; Čikiriz could have been awarded a mandate in 2003 irrespective of his position on the list, but he was not.

The SPO contested the 2008 Serbian parliamentary election as part of the For a European Serbia alliance led by the Democratic Party. Čikiriz was included on the list and was selected for a mandate when the alliance won 102 seats out of 250.[8][9] The results of the election were initially inconclusive, but a government was eventually formed by For a European Serbia and the Socialist Party of Serbia, and the SPO supported the administration Mirko Cvetković.

Serbia's electoral system was reformed in 2011, such that mandates were awarded to successful candidates in numerical order. The SPO contested the 2012 Serbian parliamentary election in an alliance with the Liberal Democratic Party (Liberalno demokratska partija, LDP) called Preokret (U-Turn). Čikiriz received the seventeenth position on the Preokret list[10] and was re-elected when the list won nineteen seats. A new coalition government was formed by the Serbian Progressive Party, the Socialist Party of Serbia, and other parties, and the SPO served in opposition.

For the 2014 parliamentary election, the SPO formed a new alliance with the Progressive Party. Čikiriz received the ninety-second position on the Aleksandar Vučić — Future We Believe In list[11] and was elected to a third term when the list won a landslide victory with 158 seats. The SPO supported Vučić's administration following the election and Čikiriz again served as a supporter of the ministry.

He received the 134th position on the successor Aleksandar Vučić – Serbia Is Winning list in the 2016 parliamentary election[12] and narrowly missed re-election when the list won 131 mandates. He was subsequently appointed as a state secretary in Serbia's ministry of justice.[13] As none of the SPO's three elected members left parliament prior to the 2020 election, Čikiriz was unable to enter the legislature as a replacement.

Čikiriz was a vice-president of the SPO at the time that he left the party in 2017.[14]

POKS member

The SPO split in 2017, and a new party called the Movement for the Restoration of the Kingdom of Serbia (POKS) was formed under Žika Gojković's leadership. Čikiriz joined the POKS, noting that its founders were dissatisfied with Vuk Drašković's continued leadership of SPO but did not want to attempt a disruptive takeover of that party. Čikiriz specifically criticized Drašković for singling out the crimes committed by Serb forces in the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s and ignoring the crimes of other sides.[15] The POKS continued to support Serbia's Progressive-led administration, and Čikiriz remained in his role as state secretary.

In 2019, the Kragujevac city assembly voted to name an alley after Draža Mihailović. Čikiriz vocally supported this decision, describing both Mihailović's Chetniks and the Yugoslav Partisans as having been anti-fascist forces in World War II.[16]

He appeared in the third position on the POKS coalition's For the Kingdom of Serbia electoral list in the 2020 Serbian parliamentary election.[17] The list narrowly missed crossing the electoral threshold to win seats in the assembly.[18] He also appeared in the lead position on a POKS-led list in Kragujevac in the concurrent 2020 Serbian local elections[19] and was returned to the city assembly when the list won three mandates.[20] He is the leader of the POKS group in the assembly.[21]

Čikiriz is a member of the POKS presidency.[22]

References
  1. MIRKO ČIKIRIZ, Otvoreni Parlament, accessed 19 August 2020.
  2. MIRKO ČIKIRIZ, Otvoreni Parlament, accessed 19 August 2020.
  3. Službeni List (City of Kragujevac), Volume 18 Number 12 (30 April 2008), p. 3.
  4. Službeni List (City of Kragujevac), Volume 18 Number 16 (27 May 2008), p. 13.
  5. Избори за народне посланике Народне скупштине одржани 23. децембра 2000. године и 10. јануара 2001. године, ИЗБОРНЕ ЛИСТЕ („Српски покрет обнове – Вук Драшковић" – Вук Драшковић), Republika Srbija - Republička izborna komisija, accessed 18 August 2020. He received the 245th position out of 250. The list was mostly alphabetical.
  6. Избори за народне посланике Народне скупштине одржани 28. децембра 2003. године, ИЗБОРНЕ ЛИСТЕ (СРПСКИ ПОКРЕТ ОБНОВЕ - НОВА СРБИЈА - ВУК ДРАШКОВИЋ - ВЕЛИМИР ИЛИЋ), Republika Srbija - Republička izborna komisija, accessed 18 August 2020. He received the 114th position.
  7. Избори за народне посланике Народне скупштине одржани 21. јануара и 8. фебрауара 2007. године, ИЗБОРНЕ ЛИСТЕ (Српски покрет обнове - Вук Драшковић), Republika Srbija - Republička izborna komisija, accessed 18 August 2020. He received the fifth position on the list.
  8. Избори за народне посланике Народне скупштине одржани 11. маја 2008. године, ИЗБОРНЕ ЛИСТЕ (ЗА ЕВРОПСКУ СРБИЈУ - БОРИС ТАДИЋ), Republika Srbija - Republička izborna komisija, accessed 18 August 2020.
  9. 11 June 2008 legislature, National Assembly of Serbia, accessed 18 August 2020.
  10. Избори за народне посланике Народне скупштине, 6. мај 2012. године, ИЗБОРНЕ ЛИСТЕ (ЧЕДОМИР ЈОВАНОВИЋ - ПРЕОКРЕТ Либерално демократска партија, Српски покрет обнове, Социјалдемократска унија, Богата Србија, Војвођанска партија, Демократска партија Санџака, Зелена еколошка партија - зелени, Партија Бугара Србије), Republika Srbija - Republička izborna komisija, accessed 18 August 2020.
  11. Избори за народне посланике Народне скупштине одржани 16. и 23. марта 2014. године, ИЗБОРНЕ ЛИСТЕ (ALEKSANDAR VUČIĆ - BUDUĆNOST U KOJU VERUJEMO), Republika Srbija - Republička izborna komisija, accessed 18 August 2020.
  12. Избори за народне посланике 2016. године » Изборне листе, ИЗБОРНЕ ЛИСТЕ (АЛЕКСАНДАР ВУЧИЋ - СРБИЈА ПОБЕЂУЈЕ), Republika Srbija - Republička izborna komisija, accessed 18 August 2020.
  13. "Čikiriz: Traži se rešenje za probleme u procesu sudskog veštačenja", Blic (Source: Tanjug), 18 September 2018, accessed 18 August 2020.
  14. "Predsedništvo SPO odbacilo zahtev za promenu rukovodstva stranke", Beta, 27 May 2017, accessed 18 August 2020.
  15. "Čikiriz: Nismo za politicko oceubistvo, osnivamo svoj pokret", Blic (Source: Tanjug), 6 June 2017, accessed 18 August 2020.
  16. Бране Карталовић, "Рат „четника” и „партизана” у Крагујевцу", Politika, 16 November 2019, accessed 19 August 2020.
  17. "Ko je na listi koalicije Za Kraljevinu Srbiju?", Danas, 14 March 2020, accessed 18 August 2020.
  18. Monarhisti ipak ispod cenzusa i posle ponovljenih izbora, Danas, 2 July 2020, accessed 18 August 2020.
  19. Изборне листе 5. ЗА КРАЉЕВИНУ СРБИЈУ- КРАГУЈЕВАЦ МОЈ ГЛАВНИ ГРАД (Покрет обнове Краљевине Србије, Монархистички фронт)), City of Kragujevac Election Commission, accessed 13 August 2020.
  20. РЕШЕЊЕ о додељивању мандата кандидатима за одборнике Скупштине града Крагујевца, City of Kragujevac Election Commission, 10 July 2020, accessed 13 August 2020.
  21. "Одборничке групе скупштине града Крагујевца", City of Kragujevac, accessed 4 October 2020.
  22. Predsedništvo, Movement for the Restoration of the Kingdom of Serbia, accessed 18 August 2020.
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