Olena Papuga

Olena Papuga (Serbian Cyrillic: Олена Папуга; born June 10, 1964) is a Serbian politician. She served in the National Assembly of Serbia from 2008 to 2020 as a member of the League of Social Democrats of Vojvodina (LSV). She is a member of Serbia's Ruthenian (also called Rusyn) community and also serves as an elected member of the Ruthenian National Council.

Papuga in 2022

Early life and private career

Papuga was born in Ruski Krstur, Vojvodina, in what was then the Socialist Republic of Serbia in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. She graduated from the University of Novi Sad Faculty of Philosophy, with a focus on Russian and Serbo-Croatian language and literature. Papuga previously worked for the publisher Ruske slovo and is currently a columnist and translator. Her ethnology, Old Ruthenian House, has been published by the Society for Ruthenian Language in Novi Sad and by Društvo Rusina in Rijeka, Croatia.[1]

Political career

Papuga has been a member of the LSV since the early 1990s. She was an organizer for the party in Ruski Krstur and was involved in numerous protests against Slobodan Milošević's administration.[2]

Member of the National Assembly

The LSV contested the 2008 Serbian parliamentary election on the Democratic Party's For a European Serbia electoral list.[3] Papuga received the 158th position on the list, which was mostly arranged in alphabetical order; the list won 102 mandates, and Papuga was subsequently chosen as part of the LSV's assembly delegation. (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 awarded out of numerical order. Papuga's relatively low position on the list did not prevent her from being awarded a mandate.)[4] The Democratic Party and its allies formed a new coalition government with the Socialist Party of Serbia after the election, and Papuga served as part of its parliamentary majority.

Serbia's electoral system was reformed in 2011, such that parliamentary mandates were awarded in numerical order to candidates on successful lists. The LSV again contested the 2012 parliamentary election in an alliance with the Democratic Party; Papuga received the fifty-eighth position on their Choice for a Better Life list and was re-elected when the list won sixty-seven mandates.[5] The Serbian Progressive Party and the Socialist Party formed a new coalition government after the election, and both the Democratic Party and the LSV moved into opposition.

The Democratic Party subsequently broke into different factions, and former party leader Boris Tadić established a new group initially called the New Democratic Party (later renamed as the Social Democratic Party (SDS)). The LSV contested both the 2014 parliamentary election and the 2016 parliamentary election in an alliance with Tadić's party. Papuga received a high list position on both occasions and was re-elected to the assembly each time.[6] The Progressive Party has remained in government during this time, and the LSV has remained in opposition, its members currently serving in a parliamentary group called the Vojvodina Front–Serbia 21.[7]

In the 2016–20 parliament, Papuga was a member of the assembly committee on human and minority rights and gender equality; a member of the committee on education, science, technological development, and the information society; a deputy member of the agriculture, forestry, and water management committee; a member of the working group for the political empowerment of persons with disabilities; a deputy member of Serbia's delegation to the Parliamentary Dimension of the Central European Initiative; and a member of the parliamentary friendship groups with Azerbaijan, Canada, Croatia, Hungary, Israel, Montenegro, Romania, Slovakia, and Ukraine.[8]

Papuga, along with the LSV's other assembly members, supported a 2015 resolution to recognize the Srebrenica massacre as constituting an act of genocide.[9] In 2017, the Croatian News Agency reported that she described an incident in Sonta, in which three Croat youths were attacked, as having been ethnically motivated. She was quoted as saying, "Serbian state institutions must not distort the truth and say that the incident in Sonta, which involved a number of persons, has nothing to do with the ethnic background of people involved in it. Unfortunately, the residents of Sonta know that the incident was ethnically motivated. Also, charges are about to be pressed as some of the people involved have a criminal past for which they never answered."[10]

She unsuccessfully sought re-election in the 2020 Serbian parliamentary election, appearing at the nineteenth position on the United Democratic Serbia coalition list.[11]

Provincial

In 2011, Papuga registered a political party called "Together for Vojvodina," representing the province's Ruthenian minority.[12] She remained a member of the LSV, and the parties co-operated at the provincial level.

Papuga sought election for the Kula division (which includes Ruski Krstur) in both the 2008 and 2012 provincial elections. She was defeated both times. Vojvodina subsequently switched to a system of proportional representation for the 2016 provincial election, and Papuga received the fifteenth position on the LSV's list.[13] The party won nine seats, and Papuga has not as yet served with its group in the Assembly of Vojvodina.

Ruthenian National Council

The first direct elections for Serbia's national minority councils were held in 2010. Papuga founded the Ruska liga to contest the elections for the Ruthenian National Council and was elected when her list won five seats.[14] She appeared in the first position on the same list in the 2014 elections and was elected when it won four mandates.[15] No group won a majority of seats on the council in 2014, and Papuga was subsequently chosen as its vice-president.[16]

Electoral record

Provincial (Vojvodina)
2012 Vojvodina assembly election
Kula (constituency seat) - First and Second Rounds[17]
Candidate Party or Coalition Votes  % Votes  %
Jovan Janić Choice for a Better Vojvodina (Affiliation: Democratic Party) 4,688 21.38 10,017 56.28
Pero Ergarac Let's Get Vojvodina Moving (Serbian Progressive Party, New Serbia, Movement of Socialists, Strength of Serbia Movement) 3,358 15.31 7,780 43.72
Aleksandar Zrakić Socialist Party of Serbia–Party of United Pensioners of Serbia–United Serbia–Social Democratic Party of Serbia 3,024 13.79
Radoslav Smiljanić Democratic Party of Serbia 2,300 10.49
Aleksandar Arvaji United Regions of Serbia 2,049 9.34
Tihomir Đuričić Tiho Serbian Radical Party 1,653 7.54
Olena Papuga League of Social Democrats of Vojvodina–Nenad Čanak 1,619 7.38
Vladimir Nikolić Citizens' Group: Dveri 1,251 5.70
Károly Valka Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians 1,178 5.37
Mirjana Obradov U-Turn 809 3.69
Total valid votes 21,929 100 17,797 100
2008 Vojvodina assembly election
Kula (constituency seat) - First and Second Rounds[18]
Candidate Party or Coalition Votes  % Votes  %
Svetozar Bukvić For a European Vojvodina: Democratic Party–G17 Plus, Boris Tadić (Affiliation: Democratic Party) 9,774 42.44 8,033 64.02
Tihomir Đuričić Tiho (incumbent) Serbian Radical Party 6,298 27.35 4,515 35.98
Dobrila Kalezić-Pindović Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS)–Party of United Pensioners of Serbia (PUPS) 2,591 11.25
Olena Papuga "Together for Vojvodina–Nenad Čanak" 1,378 5.98
Károly Valka Hungarian Coalition–István Pásztor 1,138 4.94
Tihomir Nićetin Liberal Democratic Party 1,003 4.36
József Solda Democratic Party of Serbia–New Serbia–Vojislav Koštunica 848 3.68
Total valid votes 23,030 100 12,548 100
Invalid ballots 958 244
Total votes casts 23,988 62.75 12,792 33.46

References
  1. OLENA PAPUGA, Otvoreni Parlament, accessed 11 May 2018.
  2. OLENA PAPUGA, Otvoreni Parlament, accessed 11 May 2018.
  3. Избори за народне посланике Народне скупштине одржани 11. маја 2008. године, ИЗБОРНЕ ЛИСТЕ (ЗА ЕВРОПСКУ СРБИЈУ - БОРИС ТАДИЋ) Archived 2018-04-30 at the Wayback Machine, Republika Srbija - Republička izborna komisija, accessed 5 April 2017.
  4. 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
  5. Избори за народне посланике Народне скупштине, 6. мај 2012. године, ИЗБОРНЕ ЛИСТЕ (ИЗБОР ЗА БОЉИ ЖИВОТ- БОРИС ТАДИЋ) Archived 2017-09-11 at the Wayback Machine, Republika Srbija - Republička izborna komisija, accessed 26 January 2017.
  6. Papuga received the third position on Tadić's list in 2014 and was re-elected when it won eighteen mandates. In 2016, she received the ninth list position and was re-elected when the list won thirteen mandates. See Избори за народне посланике Народне скупштине одржани 16. и 23. марта 2014. године – ИЗБОРНЕ ЛИСТЕ (11 БОРИС ТАДИЋ - Нова демократска странка - Зелени, ЛСВ - Ненад Чанак, Заједно за Србију, VMDK, Заједно за Војводину, Демократска левица Рома) Archived 2018-05-06 at the Wayback Machine, Republika Srbija - Republička izborna komisija, accessed 14 April 2017; and Избори за народне посланике 2016. године – Изборне листе (7 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.
  7. Vojvodina Front, Serbia 21 Parliamentary Group, National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia, accessed 16 June 2020.
  8. OLENA PAPUGA, National Assembly of Serbia, accessed 11 May 2018.
  9. "MPs submit resolution on Srebrenica to Serbian parliament," British Broadcasting Corporation Monitoring European, 3 July 2015 (Source: Radio B92 text website, Belgrade, in English 0000 gmt 3 Jul 15).
  10. "LSV party says Sonta incident was ethnically motivated," HINA, 28 December 2017.
  11. ИЗБОРИ ЗА НАРОДНЕ ПОСЛАНИКЕ НАРОДНЕ СКУПШТИНЕ, 21. ЈУН 2020. ГОДИНЕ Изборне листе (УЈЕДИЊЕНА ДЕМОКРАТСКА СРБИЈА (Војвођански фронт, Србија 21, Лига социјалдемократа Војводине, Странка модерне Србије, Грађански демократски форум, ДСХВ, Демократски блок, Заједно за Војводину, Унија Румуна Србије, Војвођанска партија, Црногорска партија)), Republika Srbija - Republička izborna komisija, accessed 16 June 2020.
  12. "Ethnic minority party registered in Serbia," British Broadcasting Corporation Monitoring European, 28 December 2011 (Source: Danas website, Belgrade, in Serbian 26 Dec 11).
  13. Изборне листе за изборе за посланике у Скупштину Аутономне покрајине Војводине (Изборна листа 4 - Ненад Чанак – Лига социјалдемократа Војводине – Дигни главу!), Provincial Election Commission, Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, Republic of Serbia, accessed 11 May 2018.
  14. "Сутра конституисање Националног савета Русина", Radio-Television of Vojvodina, 2 July 2010, accessed 11 May 2018.
  15. Избори за чланове националног савета русинске националне мањине, одржани 26. октобра 2014. године (непосредни избори) - ИЗБОРНЕ ЛИСТЕ ("РУСИНСКА ЛИГА" ОЛЕНА ПАПУГА - "РУСКА ЛИГА" ОЛЕНА ПАПУГА), and Избори за чланове националног савета русинске националне мањине, одржани 26. октобра 2014. године (непосредни избори) - РЕЗУЛТАТИ ИЗБОРА (Извештај о укупним резултатима избора за чланове Националног савета русинске националне мањине), Republika Srbija - Republička izborna komisija, accessed 11 May 2018.
  16. OLENA PAPUGA, Otvoreni Parlament, accessed 11 May 2018.
  17. Source: Резултати избора за посланике у Скупштину Аутономне Покрајине Војводине по већинском изборном систему (2012) (25 Кула), Provincial Election Commission, Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, Republic of Serbia, accessed 8 August 2017.
  18. Source: Избори мај 2008. године - резултати по већинском изборном систему (25 КУЛА), Provincial Election Commission, Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, Republic of Serbia, accessed 18 March 2017.
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