Elvira Kovács
Elvira Kovács (; born 18 July 1982) is an ethnic Hungarian politician in Serbia. She has served in the National Assembly of Serbia since 2007 as a member of the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians ("Vajdasági Magyar Szövetség", VMSZ). Early life and career. Kovács was born in Zrenjanin, Vojvodina, in what was then the Socialist Republic of Serbia in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. She graduated from faculty of economics at the Subotica campus of the University of Novi Sad in 2006 and worked for the secretariat for health and social policy in the executive council of Vojvodina until  July 2007. Politician. Kovács joined the VMSZ in 2000, became a regional trainer for the National Democratic Institute in 2005, and joined the presidency of the VMSZ's youth forum in 2006. Member of the National Assembly. Kovács received the 224th position on the VMSZ's electoral list in the 2007 Serbian parliamentary election. The list won three seats, and she was not initially included in the party's assembly delegation. She was, however, awarded a mandate on 18 July 2007 as a replacement for Andrea Galgó Ferenci, who had resigned. (From 2000 to 2011, Serbian parliamentary mandates were awarded  to sponsoring parties or coalitions rather than to individual candidates, and it was common practice for mandates to be assigned out of numerical order. Kovács's position on the list had no formal bearing on her chances of election or her ability to receive a mandate as a replacement member.) She served in opposition over the next year. For the 2008 parliamentary election, Kovács received the fourth position on the electoral list of the Hungarian Coalition, a multi-party alliance led by the VMSZ. The coalition won four seats, all of which were assigned to VMSZ members, and she was  chosen for a second term in the assembly. The "For a European Serbia" alliance formed a coalition government with the Socialist Party of Serbia ("Socijalistička partija Srbije", SPS) after the election, and the VMSZ provided crucial support to the administration in parliament. Kovács also led the Hungarian Coalition's electoral list in Zrenjanin for the 2008 Serbian local elections, which were held concurrently with the national assembly vote. The list won two mandates, and she did not take a seat in the city assembly. Serbia's electoral system was reformed in 2011, such that all mandates were awarded in numerical  order to candidates on successful lists. Kovács received the third position on the VMSZ's list for the 2012 election and was re-elected when the list won five mandates. The election was won by the Serbian Progressive Party ("Srpska napredna stranks", SNS), which formed a new coalition government with the SPS; the VMSZ served in opposition for the next two years. Kovács again received the third position on the VMSZ list in 2014 and was promoted to second in 2016; the party won six and four seats respectively on these occasions, and she was re-elected both times. Since  2014, the VMSZ has supported the SNS-led administration in the assembly. In the 2016–20 parliament, Kovács was deputy chair of the European integration committee, deputy chair of the European Union–Serbia stabilization and association committee, a member of the committee on human and minority rights and gender equality, a member of the committee on the rights of the child, a deputy member of the committee on constitutional and legislative issues, a member of the working group for the political empowerment of persons with disabilities, a member of the working group for national minority rights, and a member of the  parliamentary friendship groups with Germany and Slovakia. The VMSZ led a successful drive to increase its voter turnout in the 2020 Serbian parliamentary election and won a record nine seats. Kovács, who once again appeared in the second list position, was elected to a sixth term. On 22 October 2020, she was chosen as a vice-president (i.e., deputy speaker) of the assembly. She is also chair of the European integration committee, deputy chair of the stabilization and association committee, a member of the foreign affairs committee and the committee on the rights of the child, the head of Serbia 's parliamentary friendship group with Denmark, and a member of the friendship groups with Germany and Slovakia. Member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. Kovács was a substitute member of Serbia's delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) from October 2007 to October 2012 and again from January 2013 to May 2014. She was promoted to full member on 23 May 2014 and has served in this role since that time. She sits with the parliamentary group of the European People's Party and has been a vice-chair of the group  on three occasions. Kovács was chair of the PACE committee on equality and non-discrimination from 2018 to 2020 and remains a full member of the committee as of 2021. She is also vice-chair of the sub-committee on gender equality (which she chaired from January to December 2020), a member of the sub-committee on the rights of minorities (which she chaired in 2012), and a member of the committee on honouring the obligations and commitments by member states of the Council of Europe. In May 2017, she affirmed that Serbia was working toward its strategic goal of  membership in the European Union.