Branislav Damjanov
Branislav Damjanov is a Serbian politician. He was the mayor of Nova Crnja from 2000 to 2004 and served in the Vojvodina provincial assembly from 2008 to 2016. During his time as an elected official, Damjanov was a member of the Democratic Party.
Early life and career
Damjanov was born in the village of Srpska Crnja in the municipality of Nova Crnja, in what was then the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina in the Socialist Republic of Serbia, Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. He graduated from the University of Novi Sad Faculty of Agriculture in 1990 as an agricultural engineer.Politician
Early years in municipal office (1996–2008)
Damjanov was first elected to the Nova Crnja municipal assembly in the 1996 Serbian local elections. The Democratic Party contested this electoral cycle as part of the Zajedno coalition, which won seven out of twenty-six seats in Nova Crnja, finishing second against the Socialist Party of Serbia.He was re-elected in the 2000 local elections, which the DS contested as part of the Democratic Opposition of Serbia coalition. The DOS won a majority victory in Nova Crnja with fourteen seats; Damjanov was chosen afterward as assembly speaker, an office that was at the time equivalent to mayor, and served in this role for the next four years.
Serbia introduced the direct election of mayors and a system of proportional representation for local assembly elections in 2004. Damjanov did not seek re-election as mayor but led the DS list for the Nova Crnja assembly and was re-elected when the list won five seats. The election resulted in a divided government: the far-right Serbian Radical Party won the mayoral election but could not command a majority of seats in the assembly, and the local government was dominated by the DS. Damjanov was not a member of the local administration but supported it in the assembly. the direct election of mayors proved to be a short-lived experiment and was discarded with the 2008 local election cycle.
Provincial representative (2008–16)
Vojvodina held the 2008 provincial election under a system of mixed proportional representation, with half the members elected for single-member constituency seats. The DS contested the election as the main party in the For a European Vojvodina alliance; Damjanov was the Democratic Party's candidate in the Nova Crnja constituency and was elected in the second round of voting. For a European Vojvodina won a majority of seats, and Damjanov served as a government supporter.He also led the For a European Vojvodina list for Nova Crnja in the 2008 local elections. The alliance won a plurality victory with eight seats and led a local coalition government; Damjanov was chosen as the municipality's deputy mayor.
Damjanov was re-elected for Nova Crnja in the 2012 provincial election. The DS's alliance won a strong plurality victory and afterward formed a new coalition government; Damjanov again served as a government supporter and was a member of the privatization committee and the agriculture committee. He also appeared in the second position on the DS list for Nova Crnja in the 2012 local elections and was re-elected when the list won eleven seats.
Vojvodina switched to a system of full proportional representation with the 2016 provincial election. Damjanov appeared in the forty-fourth position on the DS's list and was not re-elected when the list fell to only ten seats. In the concurrent 2016 local election in Nova Crnja, he appeared in the seventh position on the DS's list and was not re-elected when the list fell to two seats.