Igor Bečić

Igor Bečić (Serbian Cyrillic: Игор Бечић; born 5 June 1971) is a politician in Serbia. He has served in the National Assembly of Serbia for all but one term since 1997. Originally a member of the far-right Serbian Radical Party, he has been a member of the Serbian Progressive Party since 2008.

Early life and career

Bečić was born in Ravno Selo in the municipality of Vrbas, Vojvodina, in what was then the Socialist Republic of Serbia in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. He served in the Yugoslav People's Army from 1990 to 1992, worked for JP "Vrbas" between 1992 and 2012, and has been an employee with Srbijagas. Bečić has a degree in economics from the European University in Novi Sad and a master's degree in industrial management from Union University.^[1][2]

Politician

Parliamentarian

Radical Party

Bečić received the second position on the Radical Party's electoral list in Vrbas in the 1997 Serbian parliamentary election and entered parliament after the party won three mandates in the division.^[3] (From 1992 to 2000, Serbia's electoral law stipulated that one-third of assembly mandates would be assigned to candidates from successful lists in numerical order, while the remaining two-thirds would be distributed amongst other candidates at the discretion of the sponsoring parties.^[4] Bečić did not automatically receive a mandate by virtue of his list position, but he was ultimately included in the Radical delegation all the same.)^[5] The Socialist Party of Serbia and its allies won the election, and the Radicals served in opposition until joining a coalition government with the Socialists in 1998. Bečić served on the foreign affairs committee during this sitting of parliament.^[6]

Serbia's electoral system was reformed for the 2000 election, with the entire country becoming a single electoral division and all parliamentary mandates being granted to candidates on successful electoral lists at the discretion of sponsoring parties, irrespective of numerical order.^[7] Bečić received the forty-eighth position on the Radical Party list;^[8] the party won twenty-three seats, and he was not on this occasion included as part of its delegation.^[9] He was, however, included in the Radical Party's lists for the 2003, 2007, and 2008 elections and was chosen for its delegation each time.^[10] In 2006, he became part of Serbia's standing delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, where Serbia has associate membership status.^[11] The Radical Party served in opposition throughout this period.

Progressive Party

Following the 2008 election, Bečić was part of a group of twenty-one parliamentarians who left the Radical Party to form the breakaway Serbian Progressive Party, a more moderate conservative group initially led by Tomislav Nikolić. Relations between the two parties were extremely tense after the split; in early 2009, Radio B92 reported that Radical Party parliamentarian Srboljub Živanović physically attacked Bečić during a sitting of the assembly.^[12]

Serbia's electoral system was reformed once again in 2011, such that parliamentary mandates were awarded to candidates on successful lists in numerical order. Bečić received the fifty-eighth position on the Progressive Party's Let's Get Serbia Moving list in the 2012 parliamentary election and was re-elected when the list won seventy-three mandates.^[13] He was again returned in the elections of 2014 and 2016.^[14] He became a deputy speaker of the assembly after the 2014 election^[15] and served in that capacity until 2016.

Bečić continued to serve in Serbia's delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly until 2014.^[16] In June 2014, while serving as head of the delegation, he gave an interview in Politika in which he stressed that Serbia was militarily neutral and had no ambitions of joining NATO. He added that Kosovo and Metohija was Serbia's greatest security challenge and said that Serbia's delegation had strongly opposed the Kosovo government's proposal that the Kosovo Security Force be transformed into an army. When asked about the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, he responded that the Serbian government respected the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all United Nations members but for a variety of reasons would not join in sanctions against Russia.^[17]

Bečić became the leader of Serbia's delegation to the parliamentary assembly of the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (OBSEC) during the 2014–16 parliament. In this capacity, was an international overseer for the 2015 Azerbaijani parliamentary election.^[18]

Bečić was selected as chair of the assembly's security services control committee following the 2016 election^[19] and served in this position for the next four years. During the 2016–20 parliament, he was also a member of the defence and internal affairs committee; the leader of Serbia's parliamentary friendship groups with Ghana and Montenegro; a member of the parliamentary friendship groups with Azerbaijan, China, Germany, Portugal, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America;^[20] and, once again, the head of Serbia's delegation in the parliamentary assembly of the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation. In the latter entity, he has served as vice-president in charge of financial matters and a member of the legal and political affairs committee.^[21]

He received the seventy-third position on the Progressive Party's Aleksandar Vučić — For Our Children coalition list in the 2020 Serbian parliamentary election^[22] and was elected to an eighth term when the list won a landslide majority with 188 mandates. He continues to chair the security services control committee, serve on the defence committee, lead Serbia's delegation to the OBSEC assembly, lead Serbia's parliamentary friendship group with Montenegro, and serve in the friendship groups with Azerbaijan, China, Ghana, Russia, and the United States of America.^[23]

Provincial politics

Bečić won the Vrbas constituency seat for the Assembly of Vojvodina in the 2004 provincial assembly election. He did not seek re-election in 2008.

Municipal politics

Bečić also served several terms in the Vrbas municipal assembly. He received the lead position on the Radical Party's lists for Vrbas in the 2004 and 2008 local elections and was included in the party's delegation each time.^[24] He served as deputy president (i.e., deputy mayor) of Vrbas from 2004 to 2008 and was the speaker of the municipal assembly from 2008 to 2009.^[25]

After leaving the Radicals, he received the lead position on the Progressive Party's list for the special 2009 Vrbas municipal election and was re-elected under its banner.^[26] He did not seek re-election in 2013.

Electoral record

Provincial (Vojvodina)

2004 Vojvodina assembly election
Vrbas (constituency seat) - First and Second Rounds^[27]

Igor Bečić	Serbian Radical Party	3,614	24.75		7,424	54.77
Svetislav Dolapčev (incumbent)	Democratic Party	2,562	17.55		6,130	45.23
Bratislav Kažić	Democratic Party of Serbia	1,944	13.31
Blagoje Baković	People's Democratic Party	1,941	13.29
Miodrag Vukotić	New Social Democracy of Vojvodina	1,908	13.07
Vladimir Kovačević	Socialist Party of Serbia	1,530	10.48
Milan Kostić	Strength of Serbia Movement	582	3.99
Žarko Prodanović	G17 Plus - Miroljub Labus	521	3.57
Total valid votes		14,602	100		13,554	100
Invalid ballots		646			638
Total votes casts		15,248	42.04		14,192	39.12

References

1. Igor Becic, National Assembly of Serbia, version as of 29 December 2014 preserved by the Internet Archive, accessed 1 March 2017.
2. IGOR BEČIĆ, Otvoreni Parlament, accessed 2 August 2017.
3. ЗБИРНЕ ИЗБОРНЕ ЛИСТЕ (10 Врбас) Archived 2018-07-14 at the Wayback Machine and Извештај о укупним резултатима избора за народне посланике у Народну скупштину Републике Србије, одржаних 21. и 28. септембра и 5. октобра 1997. године, Избори за народне посланике Народне скупштине одржани 21. и 28. септембра и 5. октобра 1997. године, Republika Srbija - Republička izborna komisija, accessed 1 March 2017.
4. Guide to the Early Election Archived 2022-01-16 at the Wayback Machine, Ministry of Information of the Republic of Serbia, December 1992, made available by the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, accessed 14 July 2017.
5. Igor Becic, National Assembly of Serbia, version as of 29 December 2014 preserved by the Internet Archive, accessed 1 March 2017.
6. IGOR BEČIĆ, Otvoreni Parlament, accessed 2 August 2017.
7. 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.
8. Избори за народне посланике Народне скупштине одржани 23. децембра 2000. године и 10. јануара 2001. године, ИЗБОРНЕ ЛИСТЕ (Српска радикална странка – др Војислав Шешељ) Archived 2018-07-19 at the Wayback Machine, Republika Srbija - Republička izborna komisija, accessed 17 February 2017.
9. Some online sources incorrectly state that Bečić served in this sitting of the assembly.
10. Bečić received the fifty-second position in 2003, the forty-fifth position in 2007, and the fifty-eighth position in 2008. For Bečić's position on the lists, see Избори за народне посланике Народне скупштине одржани 28. децембра 2003. године, ИЗБОРНЕ ЛИСТЕ (СРПСКА РАДИКАЛНА СТРАНКА - др ВОЈИСЛАВ ШЕШЕЉ) Archived 2017-07-26 at the Wayback Machine, Republika Srbija - Republička izborna komisija, accessed 17 February 2017; Избори за народне посланике Народне скупштине одржани 21. јануара и 8. фебрауара 2007. године, ИЗБОРНЕ ЛИСТЕ (Српска радикална странка - др Војислав Шешељ) Archived 2018-04-30 at the Wayback Machine, Republika Srbija - Republička izborna komisija, accessed 17 February 2017; Избори за народне посланике Народне скупштине одржани 11. маја 2008. године, ИЗБОРНЕ ЛИСТЕ (СРПСКА РАДИКАЛНА СТРАНКА - Др ВОЈИСЛАВ ШЕШЕЉ) Archived 2018-04-30 at the Wayback Machine, Republika Srbija - Republička izborna komisija, accessed 17 February 2017. For his inclusion in the assembly, see 27 January 2004 legislature, 14 February 2007 legislature, 11 June 2008 legislature, National Assembly of Serbia, accessed 3 August 2017.
11. IGOR BEČIĆ, Otvoreni Parlament, accessed 2 August 2017.
12. "Serbian parliamentary session adjourned due to reported fistfight between MPs," British Broadcasting Corporation Monitoring European, 12 February 2009 (Source: text of report by Serbian pro-western Belgrade-based Radio B92 website).
13. Избори за народне посланике Народне скупштине, 6. мај 2012. године, ИЗБОРНЕ ЛИСТЕ (POKRENIMO SRBIJU - TOMISLAV NIKOLIĆ) Archived 2018-07-24 at the Wayback Machine, Republika Srbija - Republička izborna komisija, accessed 26 January 2017.
14. Bečić received the sixty-fourth list position in 2014 and the thirty-fourth in 2016. The Progressive Party and its allies won landslide victories in these electoral cycles, taking more than one hundred seats in each instance. See Избори за народне посланике Народне скупштине одржани 16. и 23. марта 2014. године, ИЗБОРНЕ ЛИСТЕ (ALEKSANDAR VUČIĆ - BUDUĆNOST U KOJU VERUJEMO) Archived 2018-05-06 at the Wayback Machine, Republika Srbija - Republička izborna komisija, accessed 26 January 2017; Избори за народне посланике 2016. године » Изборне листе (АЛЕКСАНДАР ВУЧИЋ - СРБИЈА ПОБЕЂУЈЕ) Archived 2018-04-27 at the Wayback Machine, Republika Srbija - Republička izborna komisija, accessed 17 February 2017.
15. Namanja Cabric, "Gojkovic elected Serbian parliament speaker," Xinhua News Agency, 23 April 2014.
16. IGOR BEČIĆ, Otvoreni Parlament, accessed 2 August 2017.
17. "Deputy speaker says Serbia neutral but favours cooperation with NATO," British Broadcasting Corporation Monitoring European, 26 June 2014 (Source: text of report by Serbian newspaper Politika website on 24 June).
18. "Azerbaijani citizens made the right choice at election – BSEC observer," Trend News Agency (Azerbaijan), 2 November 2015.
19. Security Services Control Committee gets new chairman, B92, 5 July 2016, accessed 1 March 2017. Radical Party leader Vojislav Šešelj, also a member of the committee, disrupted the proceedings to assert that Bečić was unqualified for the position. Dušan Bajatović of the Socialist Party of Serbia was chosen as deputy chair of the committee.
20. Igor Becic, National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia, accessed 25 June 2020.
21. "Mr. Igor BECİC" Archived 2020-06-28 at the Wayback Machine, Parliamentary Assembly of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation, accessed 25 July 2020.
22. "Ko je sve na listi SNS za republičke poslanike?", Danas, 6 March 2020, accessed 30 June 2020.
23. IGOR MA BECIC, National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia, accessed 2 January 2021.
24. The Radicals won fourteen mandates in 2004 and sixteen in 2008. See Službeni List (Opštine Vrbas), Volume 40 Number 9 (9 October 2004), pp. 4-5; Službeni List (Opštine Vrbas), Volume 44 Number 9 (29 May 2008), p. 2. Unlike most municipalities in Serbia, Vrbas still had a "one-third/two-thirds" rule for municipal elections in 2004, in which the first third of mandates won by successful lists were awarded in numerical order. Bečić won a seat automatically in 2004.
25. IGOR BEČIĆ, Otvoreni Parlament, accessed 2 August 2017.
26. Službeni List (Opštine Vrbas), Volume 45 Number 23 (24 November 2009), pp. 4-5. The Progressives won six mandates.
27. Source: Укупни резултати избора расписаних за 19. септембар 2004. године - већински изборни систем (11 ВРБАС) Archived 2018-11-09 at the Wayback Machine, Provincial Election Commission, Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, Republic of Serbia, accessed 1 March 2017.