Nenad Milić

Nenad Milić (Serbian Cyrillic: Ненад Милић; born 22 June 1962) is a politician in Serbia. At one time a prominent figure in Zoran Đinđić's administration, Milić has served in the National Assembly of Serbia on an almost continuous basis since 2007 as a member of the Liberal Democratic Party.

Early life and career

Milić was born in Belgrade, in what was then the People's Republic of Serbia in the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia. He holds a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Belgrade Faculty of Law and worked in the Serbian ministry of the interior before entering political life, at one time serving as an inspector.[1] He was head of general administration and secretary of the Belgrade municipality of Rakovica from 1997 to 2001.[2]

Democratic Opposition of Serbia and the Đinđić administration

Milić was head of legal service at the central election staff of the Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS) from 2000 to 2002 and served on the Republic of Serbia's electoral commission in the same period. He was an active member of Vojislav Koštunica's electoral staff in the 2000 Yugoslavian presidential election, in which Koštunica challenged incumbent president Slobodan Milošević.[3] On the eve of the vote, Milić was quoted as saying, "We are working day and night to prepare against all the tricks the regime used in past elections."[4] He later challenged the initial published results of the first round of voting, arguing that the Milošević regime had inflated the total number of votes in two areas of Kosovo to deny Koštunica an outright majority victory.[5] Following popular protests, the election commission released a revised vote count showing that Koštunica had indeed won an outright victory in the first round.

Milić was later the primary legal representative of the DOS in a court dispute over voting irregularities in a small number of polling stations following the 2000 Serbian parliamentary election.[6] He advised the international media in January 2001 that a new Serbian government would soon be formed, following the exhaustion of the Serbian Radical Party's legal challenges against the vote.[7]

Milić served as chief of Serbian prime minister Zoran Đinđić's cabinet from 2001 to 2002, and from 2002 to 2004 he was the deputy minister of internal affairs.[8] In the latter context, he took part in discussions with authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina to better target criminal activities in the two countries; during this time, he remarked that the possible arrest of Ratko Mladić, Radovan Karadžić, and others by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) would not destabilize the region.[9] He also participated in the creation of a regional strategy against organized crime, signed in Montenegro in October 2003.[10]

Milić denied claims by Radical Party leader Vojislav Šešelj that British Special Air Service forces had tried to kidnap him at the behest of the ICTY in early 2003.[11]

Following the assassination of Zoran Đinđić in March 2003, Milić was appointed to a working group to monitor and oversee the conclusion of the resulting state of emergency.[12]

Democratic Party, the 2003 election, and removal from office

The Democratic Opposition of Serbia dissolved in December 2003. Milić received the 198th position (out of 250) on the Democratic Party's electoral list in the 2003 Serbian parliamentary election.[13] The party won thirty-seven seats, and Milić was not chosen as part of its parliamentary delegation. (From 2000 to 2011, parliamentary mandates were awarded to sponsoring parties or coalitions rather than to individual candidates, and it was common practice for the mandates to be distributed out of numerical order. Milić could have received a mandate despite his low position on the list, although in the event he was not.)[14]

The Democratic Party was not part of the new government of Serbia formed after the 2003 election. In March 2004, Milić was fired as deputy interior minister by the new minister, Dragan Jočić.[15] Jočić later stated that Milić, rather than the previous minister, had been responsible for overseeing cases related to war crimes while in office.[16] In June 2004, Milić was dismissed from Serbia and Montenegro's national council for cooperation with the ICTY.[17]

Liberal Democratic Party

The Democratic Party split in 2004, and a group of party rebels led by Čedomir Jovanović subsequently formed a new organization called the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Milić sided with Jovanović and was elected to the LDP's presidency at its founding convention in November 2005.[18]

In 2006, Milić charged the Serbian government of failing to operate an effective witness protection program in relation to the Đinđić murder trial and stated that Serbian police were not interested in arresting six remaining fugitives from the Zemun Clan.[19]

During the 2007 Serbian parliamentary election, Milić stated that there had been an assassination attempt against Čedomir Jovanović, in which "five or six connected fuses [were] found under the back seat in the [party leader's] car where Jovanović usually sits." The LDP expressed outage when the interior ministry rejected reports that an explosive device had been planted in the car.[20]

Milić was included on an LDP-fronted list in this election and was chosen for his party's assembly delegation when the list won fifteen mandates.[21] Following the election, he represented the LDP in discussions with Serbian president Boris Tadić on the Ahtisaari Plan on the status of Kosovo and Metohija.[22] He later served on the assembly's security committee and strongly opposed suggestions that the Serbian military could intervene in Kosovo and Metohija in the event of the disputed province declaring its independence. "Our troops have no business in Kosovo. We have been there and we remember how we fared, in spite of exclamations that we beat NATO. We would 'win' again that way," he said, adding that, "calls for the army to defend the Kosovo Serbs could only harm Serbia now."[23]

In 2007, Milić was asked if the Đinđić government had succumbed to political pressures not to extradite Radovan Karadžić to the ICTY. He rejected the charge, stating, "Do you really think that we would have handed over Milošević and not handed over Karadžić? For the Serbian political scene and the Serbian society, it was much more difficult and more important - and it required more political courage and, as we unfortunately saw subsequently, personal courage as well - to hand over Milošević than Karadžić, Mladić or any other indictee."[24]

The LDP fielded its own electoral list in the 2008 parliamentary election. Milić received the seventeenth position on the list and was again selected for the party's assembly delegation when the list won thirteen mandates.[25] He continued to serve on Serbia's security committee.[26]

Serbia's electoral system was reformed in 2011, such that parliamentary mandates were awarded in numerical order to candidates on successful lists. The LDP contested the 2012 parliamentary election as part of the Preokret (U-Turn) coalition; Milić received the tenth position on its list and was re-elected when the list won nineteen mandates.[27] He once again served on the security committee after the election.[28]

Milić received the fourth position on a coalition list led by the LDP in the 2014 election; the list did not receive enough support to cross the electoral threshold, and Milić did not serve in the parliament that followed.[29] He received the seventh position on a list that included the LDP and other parties in the 2016 election and returned to parliament when the list won thirteen mandates.[30] He is currently a member of the parliamentary environmental protection committee and a deputy member of three other committees.[31] For all of his parliamentary career, Milić has been an opposition member.

References
  1. Dejan Anastasijević, "Ekstremno liberalne sudije", Vreme, 12 December 2002, accessed 30 March 2017.
  2. NENAD MILIĆ, Otvoreni Parlament, accessed 30 March 2018.
  3. "Serbian opposition's presidential election campaign - 'Kostunica, of course'," British Broadcasting Corporation Monitoring European - Political, 25 August 2000 (Source: Beta news agency, Belgrade, in Serbo-Croat 1214 gmt 25 Aug 00).
  4. Misha Savic, "Fears of cheating widespread ahead of Sunday elections," Associated Press Newswires, 22 September 2000.
  5. "Yugoslav authorities hand opposition voting records," Reuters News, 4 October 2000.
  6. "Serbian vote re-run seen paving way for new govt," Reuters News 11 January 2001.
  7. "Top Serbian court clears way for new government," Reuters News, 17 January 2001.
  8. NENAD MILIĆ, Otvoreni Parlament, accessed 30 March 2018.
  9. "Bosnian, Serb Republic, Serbian police to step up joint efforts to fight crime," British Broadcasting Corporation Monitoring European, 14 April 2003 (Source: SRNA news agency, Bijeljina, in Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian 1206 gmt 14 Apr 03).
  10. "Regional agreement on fight against organized crime signed in Montenegro," British Broadcasting Corporation Monitoring European, 31 October 2003 (Source: TV Crna Gora, Podgorica, in Serbian 1830 gmt 31 Oct 03).
  11. "Serbian police official denies SAS involved in arrest of Hague indictees," British Broadcasting Corporation Monitoring Newsfile, 1 February 2003 (Source: Radio B92, Belgrade, in Serbian 1600 gmt 1 Feb 03).
  12. "Serbian government sets up working group to monitor state of emergency," British Broadcasting Corporation Monitoring European, 12 March 2003 (Source: Beta news agency, Belgrade, in Serbian 1543 gmt 12 Mar 03).
  13. Избори за народне посланике Народне скупштине одржани 28. децембра 2003. године, ИЗБОРНЕ ЛИСТЕ (ДЕМОКРАТСКА СТРАНКА - БОРИС ТАДИЋ) Archived 2017-07-26 at the Wayback Machine, Republika Srbija - Republička izborna komisija, accessed 5 April 2017.
  14. 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.
  15. "New Serbian interior minister purges pro-western officials in police shakeup," Canadian Press, 10 March 2004.
  16. "Serbian police minister: No information about Gen Mladic's whereabouts," British Broadcasting Corporation Monitoring European, 11 April 2004 (Source: Tanjug news agency, Belgrade, in English 1552 gmt 10 Apr 04).
  17. "Serbian government expels Covic from Hague cooperation council," British Broadcasting Corporation Monitoring European, 4 June 2004 (Source: Beta news agency, Belgrade, in Serbian 1603 gmt 4 Jun 04).
  18. "Ex-Serbian deputy premier elected leader of newly-formed Liberal Democratic Party," British Broadcasting Corporation Monitoring European, 5 November 2005 (Source: FoNet news agency, Belgrade, in Serbian 1251 gmt 5 Nov 05).
  19. "Serbian police accused of failing to act against main mafia clan," British Broadcasting Corporation Monitoring European, 7 June 2006 (Source: Radio B92 text website, Belgrade, in English 0836 gmt 7 Jun 06).
  20. "LDP outraged at police statement on suspect device under party leader's car," HINA, 20 January 2007.
  21. Milić received the 127th position on the list. See Избори за народне посланике Народне скупштине одржани 21. јануара и 8. фебрауара 2007. године, ИЗБОРНЕ ЛИСТЕ (Либерално демократска партија - Грађански савез Србије - Социјалдемократска унија - Лига социјалдемократа Војводине - Чедомир Јовановић) Archived 2018-04-30 at the Wayback Machine, Republika Srbija - Republička izborna komisija, accessed 17 July 2017.
  22. "Serbian president informs political leaders about Ahtisaari's Kosovo plan," British Broadcasting Corporation Monitoring European, 5 February 2007 (Source: Radio Belgrade in Serbian 1400 gmt 5 Feb 07).
  23. "Serbian politicians comment on minister's statement not to send army to Kosovo," British Broadcasting Corporation Monitoring European, 18 September 2007 (Source: Dnevnik, Novi Sad, in Serbian 14 Sep 07).
  24. "Bosnian TV's Belgrade reporter says Karadzic's, Mladic's freedom days numbered," British Broadcasting Corporation Monitoring European, 20 June 2007 (Source: BHTV1, Sarajevo, in Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian 1700 gmt 19 Jun 07).
  25. Избори за народне посланике Народне скупштине одржани 11. маја 2008. године, ИЗБОРНЕ ЛИСТЕ (ЛИБЕРАЛНО ДЕМОКРАТСКА ПАРТИЈА - ЧЕДОМИР ЈОВАНОВИЋ) Archived 2018-04-30 at the Wayback Machine, Republika Srbija - Republička izborna komisija, accessed 17 July 2017.
  26. "Serbia lacks defence policy, professionalizing army not possible - CGS," British Broadcasting Corporation Monitoring European, 16 December 2008 (Source: Radio Belgrade in Serbian 1400 gmt 25 Dec 08).
  27. 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) Archived 2017-09-11 at the Wayback Machine, Republika Srbija - Republička izborna komisija, accessed 26 January 2017.
  28. "Serbian Assembly to tighten services control, classified data handling procedure," British Broadcasting Corporation Monitoring European, 27 November 2012.
  29. Избори за народне посланике Народне скупштине одржани 16. и 23. марта 2014. године, ИЗБОРНЕ ЛИСТЕ (ЧЕДОМИР ЈОВАНОВИЋ - ЛДП, БДЗС, СДУ) Archived 2018-05-06 at the Wayback Machine, Republika Srbija - Republička izborna komisija, accessed 26 January 2017.
  30. Избори за народне посланике 2016. године » Изборне листе (БОРИС ТАДИЋ, ЧЕДОМИР ЈОВАНОВИЋ - САВЕЗ ЗА БОЉУ СРБИЈУ – Либерално демократска партија, Лига социјалдемократа Војводине, Социјалдемократска странка) Archived 2018-04-27 at the Wayback Machine, Republika Srbija - Republička izborna komisija, accessed 26 January 2017.
  31. NENAD MILIC, National Assembly of Serbia, accessed 30 March 2018.
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