Marija Obradović (politician)

Obradović was born and raised in Kraljevo, then part of the Socialist Republic of Serbia in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. She attended the pedagogical academy in Kruševac, the University of Belgrade Teacher Education Faculty, and the diplomatic academy of the Serbian ministry of foreign affairs. She was a journalist at Radio Television Kruševac from 1991 to 1994 and worked for JP "Ibarske novosti" and Radio Television of Serbia in Kraljevo from 1994 to 2008, serving as editor of the program Danas ("Today"). She is now based in Belgrade.[1]

Obradović worked for the Progressive Party's information service from 2008 to 2012. She received the thirty-sixth position on the party's Let's Get Serbia Moving electoral list in the 2012 Serbian parliamentary election and was elected when the list won seventy-three mandates.[2] The Progressive Party became the leading force in a new coalition government formed after the election, and Obradović served as part of its parliamentary majority. She was a member of Serbia's delegation to the Inter-Parliamentary Union Assembly and a founder and coordinator of the Women's Parliamentary Network during this sitting of the legislature, as well as serving on Serbia's foreign affairs committee.[3]

She was promoted to the twelfth position on the Progressive Party's Aleksandar Vučić — Future We Believe In list for the 2014 parliamentary election and was re-elected when the list won a landslide victory with 158 out of 250 mandates.[4] In this sitting of the assembly, she became the chair of the defence and internal affairs committee, was a member of Serbia's delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and continued to serve on the foreign affairs committee and coordinate the Women's Parliamentary Network.[5] In December 2014, she took part in a conference of prominent women from Belgrade and Priština, held in the Serbian capital.[6] She rejected the possibility of Serbia joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 2016, affirming the country's policy of neutrality.[7]

In January 2016, Obradović indicated that she was open the possibility of becoming Serbia's new defence minister in an upcoming cabinet shuffle. She was not, on this occasion, appointed to the position.[8]

Obradović appeared in the fifteenth position on the Progressive Party's electoral list for the 2016 parliamentary election and was re-elected to a third term when the list won a second consecutive majority with 131 mandates.[9] She continues to chair the assembly's defence and internal affairs committee and is a member of the foreign affairs committee and the security services control committee; a deputy member of the culture and information committee; a deputy member of the European Union–Serbia stabilization and association parliamentary committee; and a member of Serbia's parliamentary friendship groups with Armenia, Canada, China, Germany, India, Qatar, Russia, and the United States of America.[10]

Obradović also continues to serve with Serbia's delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, where she sits with the European People's Party group. She is a member of the assembly's committee on legal affairs and human rights and in November 2017 was chosen as a vice-president of the assembly.[11][12]