Gorica Gajić

Gorica Gajić (Serbian Cyrillic: Горица Гајић; born 1 January 1958) is a Serbian politician who has served three terms in the National Assembly of Serbia. She is a member of the New Democratic Party of Serbia (NDSS), which was known until May 2022 as the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS).

Gajić lives in Svilajnac and is a graduated economist.^[1]

Gajić joined the DSS on its formation in 1992.^[2]

Gajić received the 119th position on the DSS's electoral list in the 2003 Serbian parliamentary election.^[3] The list won fifty-three seats, and she was not afterward included in the party's national assembly delegation.^[4] (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 mandates to be assigned out of numerical order.^[5] Gajić could have been given a mandate despite her list position, though ultimately she was not.)

By virtue of its performance in the 2003 parliamentary election, the DSS had the right to appoint twenty delegates to the Assembly of Serbia and Montenegro in early 2004. Gajić was included in her party's delegation and served on the federal assembly's committee for internal economic affairs and finance.^[6] The assembly ceased to exist in 2006, when Montenegro declared independence.

The DSS contested the 2007 and 2008 Serbian parliamentary elections in an alliance with New Serbia (NS). Gajić was included both times on the coalition's electoral list but was not chosen for a mandate on either occasion.^[7]

Serbia's electoral system was reformed in 2011, such that all parliamentary mandates were awarded to candidates on successful lists in numerical order. Gajić received the twenty-fourth position on the DSS's list in the 2012 parliamentary election and was not immediately elected when the party won twenty-one seats.^[8] After the resignation of other candidates further up the list, she received a mandate on 26 July 2012.^[9] The Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) won the election and afterward formed a coalition government with the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) and other parties, while the DSS served in opposition. During her first term in the national assembly, Gajić was a member of the spatial planning committee,^[a] a deputy member of the labour committee,^[b] and a member of the parliamentary friendship groups with France and Hungary.^[10]

She was promoted to the fifteenth position on the DSS's list for the 2014 election.^[11] On this occasion, the list did not cross the electoral threshold for assembly representation. Gajić was elected to the DSS presidency in October 2014.^[12]

The DSS contested the 2016 parliamentary election in alliance with Dveri. Gajić received the eighth position on their combined list and was elected to a second term when the list won thirteen seats.^[13] The SNS and its allies won a majority victory, and the DSS again served in opposition. In the 2016–20 parliament, Gajić was a member of the economy committee^[c] and the labour committee, a deputy member of the finance committee^[d] and the committee on the rights of the child, and a member of the parliamentary friendship groups with France, Greece, and Russia.^[14]

The DSS experienced a serious split in late 2016, after which Gajić, Milan Lapčević, and Dejan Šulkić were the only assembly members who remained with the party.^[15] Lapčević subsequently left the party as well. In 2019, Gajić criticized the parties of the opposition Alliance for Serbia for boycotting the assembly, describing their decision as rushed and ultimately counterproductive.^[16]

The DSS created a new alliance called METLA 2020 for the 2020 Serbian parliamentary election, and Gajić appeared in the third position on its list.^[17] The list did not cross the electoral threshold. The following year, the DSS and the Movement for the Restoration of the Kingdom of Serbia (POKS) formed a coalition called the National Democratic Alternative (NADA). Gajić received the fourth position on the coalition's list in the 2022 parliamentary election and was elected to a third term when the list won fifteen seats.^[18] The Progressives and their allies once again won the election, and the DSS (renamed as the NDSS after the election) remained in opposition.

In her third assembly term, Gajić was a member of the labour committee and a deputy member of the education committee,^[e] the health and family committee, and the committee on the rights of the child.^[19]

She appeared in the twenty-first position on the NADA coalition's list in the 2023 Serbian parliamentary election and was not re-elected when the list fell to thirteen seats. Her term ended when the new assembly was convened in February 2024. She is currently the fourth DSS-endorsed candidate in sequence with the right to enter the assembly as a replacement delegate in the event of a vacancy.^[20][21]

Gajić has served a number of terms in the Svilajnac municipal assembly. She was the DSS's candidate for mayor in the 2004 Serbian local elections, in which mayors were directly elected.^[22] Although unsuccessful in that contest, she was chosen afterward as the municipality's deputy mayor and served in this role for the next four years.^[23]

Gajić appeared in the lead position on the DSS's list for Svilajnac in the 2012 Serbian local elections and was re-elected when the list won three mandates.^[24][25] She later led a DSS–Dveri list in the 2016 local elections; this list did not cross the threshold.^[26][27] In the 2020 Serbian local elections, she was re-elected to the municipal assembly on the list of an alliance called "Only Forward Svilajnac," which won two seats.^[28]