Stevan Vrbaški
Stevan Vrbaški () is a former politician in Serbia. He was the mayor of Novi Sad from 1997 to 2000 and has served in the National Assembly of Serbia and the Assembly of Vojvodina. During his political career, Vrbaški was a member of the Serbian Renewal Movement ("Srpski pokret obnove", SPO). Private career. Vrbaški is a specialist doctor. Politician. Member of the provincial assembly. Vrbaški was elected to the Vojvodina assembly in the December 1992 provincial election, winning Novi Sad's thirteenth division as a candidate of the Democratic Movement of Serbia ("Demokratski pokret Srbije", DEPOS), a political coalition  led by the SPO. His candidacy was also endorsed by the Democratic Party ("Demokratska stranka", DS) and the Reformist Democratic Party of Vojvodina ("Reformska demokratska stranka Vojvodine", RDSV). The election was won by the Socialist Party of Serbia ("Socijalistička partija Srbije", SPS), and Vrbaški served in opposition. He was not re-elected to the assembly in 1996. Mayor of Novi Sad. The SPO joined with the DS and other parties to create the "Zajedno" (Together) coalition for the 1996 Serbian local elections. The coalition was successful in several major cities, including Novi Sad; the SPO, with twenty-two seats out  of seventy, became the largest single party in the Novi Sad city assembly. SPO member Mihajlo Svilar was initially chosen as mayor in late 1996. He resigned on 18 June 1997, and Vrbaški was chosen by the city assembly as his successor. Despite periods of tension, the governing coalition of the SPO, the DS, and the League of Social Democrats of Vojvodina (LSV) remained in power for a full term. The city experienced significant damage during the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. Vrbaški outlined his views on the subject in an interview with "Vreme", describing NATO's attacks on the  city as unjustified and criticizing Yugoslavian president Slobodan Milošević for not coming to the city in the aftermath of the conflict. In March 2000, he announced that the city would receive six million German marks from the European Commission for the reconstruction of the city's bridge over the Danube, which had been destroyed in the bombing. The SPO attempted to run on a united list with the Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS) in Novi Sad for the 2000 local elections, but the negotiations were ultimately unsuccessful. The DOS won a landslide victory, and the SPO failed to win any  seats. Vrbaški stood down as mayor on 20 October 2000. Parliamentarian. While serving as mayor, Vrbaški also appeared in the lead position on the SPO's electoral list for the Novi Sad division in the 1997 Serbian parliamentary election and was elected when the party won a single mandate for the division. (From 1992 to 2000, Serbia's electoral law stipulated that one-third of parliamentary mandates would be assigned to candidates from successful lists in numerical order, while the remaining two-thirds would be distributed amongst other candidates on the lists by the sponsoring parties. Vrbaški automatically received his  party's mandate for the division.) The election was won by the Socialist Party, and the SPO served in opposition. Serbia's electoral system was reformed for the 2000 parliamentary election, with the entire country becoming a single electoral division and all mandates being assigned to candidates at the discretion of successful parties or coalitions. Vrbaški received the twentieth position on the SPO's electoral list, which did not cross the threshold to win representation in the assembly. He stood down from parliament at the end of his term in January 2001 and has not returned to elected office since  this time.