Ljubomir Marić

Ljubomir Marić (Serbian Cyrillic: Љубомир Марић; born 1977) is a politician in Serbia. He was a cabinet minister in the government of Kosovo from 2014 to 2016 as a representative of the Serb List. He was later elected to the National Assembly of Serbia in the 2020 Serbian parliamentary election. Marić is a member of the Serbian Progressive Party.

Private life

Marić is from Kosovo Mitrovica (North Mitrovica) in the disputed territory recognized in Serbia as Kosovo and Metohija. He has a master's degree in management.[1]

Cabinet minister in Kosovo

The Serb List entered Kosovo's coalition government following the 2013 Brussels Agreement, which normalized some relations between the governments of Serbia and Kosovo without resolving the status of the territory. Marić was appointed in 2014 as one of two Serb List representatives in cabinet, serving as minister of administration and local self-government. As minister, he was involved in ongoing discussions in Brussels, which focused on the establishment of the Community of Serb Municipalities (Zajednica srpskih opština, ZSO) among other matters.[2] In a May 2015 interview, he said that the ZSO was necessary for the survival of Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija. He added that there had been no will to create the ZSO prior to the formation of Isa Mustafa's administration and that the involvement of the Serb List in government had precipitated the change.[3] (The establishment of the ZSO was subsequently postponed, and as of 2020 it has still not occurred.)

Marić was a frequent spokesperson for the Serb community in Kosovo during this time. In February 2016, he indicated that the community would put forward its own candidate in the 2016 Kosovan presidential election to pursue the formation of the ZSO.[4] He later said that Serb delegates would not take part in committee discussions as to the status of the Trepča Mines, adding that the question should be resolved in Brussels.[5]

Marić was dismissed from cabinet on 16 December 2016 and replaced with another representative of the Serb community.[6] This decision was condemned by the Progressive Party, which blamed the actions of local members of the Movement of Socialists on the Serb List.[7] (This did not ultimately affect the alliance between the Progressives and the Movement of Socialists in the government of Serbia.) Prime Minister Mustafa defended the decision, saying he did not have confidence in Marić as a minister and accusing Marić of making statements contrary to government policy.[8][9]

On 14 March 2017, the government of Serbia appointed Marić as assistant director of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija. He continued to have oversight in the process of establishing the ZSO.[10] Following the 2017 Kosovan parliamentary election, he complained to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) that some Serbs had been denied the franchise.[11]

Member of the National Assembly of Serbia

Marić received the fifty-second position on the Progressive Party's Aleksandar Vučić — For Our Children electoral list in the 2020 parliamentary election[12] and was elected when the list won a landslide victory with 188 mandates.

gollark: Environmental damage is partly a fixable technical problem and partly a social one, because people are SILLY DODECAHEDRA who will not accept the obvious solution (to some things) of nuclear power. I'm also not convinced that reverting to horrible premodern living standards would *reduce* depression.
gollark: Hmm, this is quite long.
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gollark: You can also, well, buy land and grow food there, if you really want. My family has a small food-growing garden in our, er, garden.
gollark: Modern society generally brings better health AND lifespan, and there's a bunch of effort being put into health and life extension research now.

References
  1. "Ko je sve na listi SNS za republičke poslanike?", Danas, 6 March 2020, accessed 30 June 2020.
  2. "Zajednica srpskih opština jedna od glavnih tema u Briselu", N1, 12 January 2015, accessed 17 July 2020.
  3. "Marić: ZSO ključna za opstanak Srba", N1, 5 May 2015, accessed 17 July 2020.
  4. "Marić: Srbi će imati svog kandidata za predsednika Kosova", N1, 9 February 2016, accessed 17 July 2020.
  5. "Marić: Srbi neće učestvovati u komisiji za vlasništvo Trepče", N1, 19 March 2016, accessed 17 July 2020.
  6. "Isa Mustafa smenio Ljubomira Marića s mesta ministra", N1, 16 December 2016, accessed 17 July 2020.
  7. Maja Nikolić, "Ministarsko mesto na Kosovu razdvojilo Vulinov PS od SNS", 22 December 2016, accessed 17 July 2020.
  8. "Mustafa: Ne kajem se zbog smene Marića", N1, 28 December 2016, accessed 17 July 2020.
  9. "Marić smenjen zbog izjava, Mustafa preti i ostalim Srbima", Blic, 26 December 2016, accessed 17 July 2020.
  10. "Ljubomir Marić pomoćnik direktora Kancelarije za KiM", Blic (Source: Tanjug), 14 March 2017, accessed 17 July 2020.
  11. "Marić: Velikom broju Srba uskraćeno pravo da biraju svoje predstavnike", Blic (Source: Beta), 7 July 2017, accessed 17 July 2020.
  12. "Ko je sve na listi SNS za republičke poslanike?", Danas, 6 March 2020, accessed 30 June 2020.
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