Gordana Čomić


Gordana Čomić is a politician in Serbia. She has served in the National Assembly of Serbia since 2001 and is currently a deputy speaker of the assembly. Čomić was also a member of the Assembly of Vojvodina from 1996 to 2004. She was a member of the Democratic Party until May 2020, when she was excluded from the party from opposing its boycott of the 2020 Serbian parliamentary election.

Early life and career

Čomić was born in Novi Sad, Vojvodina, in what was then the People's Republic of Serbia in the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia. She trained as a physicist and was an employee of the University of Novi Sad from 1984 to 1999, working in the Faculty of Technical Sciences. From 1999 to 2004, she worked in marketing for JP SPC Vojvodina. Čomić joined the Democratic Party's Novi Sad municipal board in 1992, became a spokesperson for the party at the city and provincial level, was president of its Novi Sad electoral headquarters in 1996, and served as president of the Vojvodina Democratic Party organization from 1998 to 2001.
Čomić appeared on the Democratic Party's electoral lists in the 1992 and 1993 elections for the National Assembly of Serbia, running both times in the Novi Sad electoral division. She was not included in her party's parliamentary delegation on either occasion.
She was elected to the Vojvodina assembly for Novi Sad's thirteenth electoral district in the 1996 parliamentary election and led the opposition group in the assembly from 1996 to 2000. Re-elected for Novi Sad's tenth district in 2000, she served as the assembly's deputy speaker from 2000 to 2001. At the municipal level, she was a member of Novi Said's executive committee in 1997.

Member of the National Assembly

2000–12

Serbia's electoral map was redrawn for the 2000 election, with the entire country becoming a single constituency. Čomić received the twenty-first position on the electoral list of the Democratic Opposition of Serbia, a broad coalition that included the Democratic Party. The list won a landslide majority with 176 out of 250 mandates, and Čomić was selected as part of its parliamentary delegation. She became a vice-president of the Democratic Party in 2001 and served as a deputy speaker of the assembly.
In October 2003, Čomić controversially delayed a vote of no-confidence in the government of Zoran Živković. Čomić was a supporter of Živković, and some opposition members charged that the delay was simply a bid a to buy more time for the government to build a working majority. In the same period, she oversaw a motion of non-confidence in assembly speaker Nataša Mićić. Neither motion was ultimately successful, and Mićić dissolved the assembly for new elections on November 13, 2003. The Democratic Party contested the 2003 parliamentary election at the head of its own alliance, and Čomić received the sixth position on its list. The list won thirty-seven mandates, and she was again chosen as part of her party's assembly delegation. The rival Democratic Party of Serbia emerged at the head of a coalition government after the election, and the Democratic Party served in opposition.
In January 2004, Čomić supported Živković's campaign against Boris Tadić for the vacant Democratic Party leadership. It was reported that Tadić responded by blocking Čomić from becoming the new assembly speaker, a position she had expected to receive. Tadić was chosen as party leader in early 2004, and Čomić was defeated in her concurrent bid for re-election as a party vice-president.
She continued to serve as a deputy speaker in the parliament that followed, chaired the Serbian parliamentary committees for international relations and European integration, and in 2006 was appointed as part of Serbia's delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. She supported Serbia's integration into the European Union and criticized what she regarded as efforts to increase Serbia's dependence on Russia. In 2006, she worked with parliamentarians from Montenegro on a regional charter of minority rights.
Čomić was again selected as part of the Democratic Party's parliamentary delegation following the 2007 and 2008 elections. The Democratic Party returned to participation in government in 2007 and became the dominant force in a coalition government in 2008. In the latter year, Čomić was once again chosen as a deputy speaker of the assembly. She indicated her support for the Statute of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina in January 2009, arguing that it was not a separatist document and that it would benefit both Vojvodina and Serbia as a whole.

Since 2012

Serbia's electoral system was reformed once again in 2011, such that parliamentary mandates were awarded in numerical order to candidates on successful lists. Čomić was given the fifteenth position on the Democratic Party's Choice for a Better Life coalition list in the 2012 election and was re-elected when the list won sixty-seventh mandates. This election was won by the Serbian Progressive Party and its allies, and the Democratic Party moved into opposition. Čomić continued to serve in Serbia's OSCE PA delegation and was selected by the organization as a rapporteur for human rights and migration.
In November 2013, Čomić headed an OSCE PA delegation overseeing the 2013 Tajikistani presidential election. She was critical of the way the election was handled, saying, "While quiet and peaceful, this was an election without a real choice. Being in power requires abiding by OSCE commitments, not taking advantage of incumbency, as we saw here. Greater genuine political pluralism will be critical for Tajikistan to meet its democratic commitments." Čomić later advocated for the OSCE PA's Baku Declaration. She stood down from her membership in the OSCE PA in 2014.
Čomić received high positions on the Democratic Party-led lists in the 2014 and 2016 elections and was easily re-elected both times. She was chosen as a deputy speaker after both elections, and in 2014 she was again selected as a party vice-president. She has also served as her party's critic on defence issues. The Democratic Party has remained in opposition throughout this time.
Čomić was an early supporter of Saša Janković's bid for president of Serbia in the 2017 election.
She is currently the deputy chair of the parliamentary committee on constitutional and legislative issues; a member of the committees on Kosovo-Metohija, health and family, European integration, and the rights of the child; a deputy member of two other committees; a deputy member of the Serbia's delegation to the South-East European Cooperation Process parliamentary assembly; and a member of the parliamentary friendship groups with Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Germany, Israel, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America.
She was expelled from the Democratic Party in early 2020 after a parliamentary session while her party was boycotting the institution. She is currently seeking re-election to the assembly, holding the fourth position on the electoral list of the United Democratic Serbia alliance.
Čomić started writing a blog in 2006, began using Twitter in 2010, and is known among Serbian politicians as a prominent user of social media.