The Green-Left Front (ZLF) announced today that during the session of the Pančevo Assembly, the head of the councilor group of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) Ivan Tešić sexually harassed ZLF councilor Tamara Maksić.
According to ZLF, Tešić came to the meeting dressed in a T-shirt with a picture of Maksić and a controversial message, with the aim of humiliating her and hurting her dignity. ZLF states that Tešić is also the commissioner of SNS for Pančevo and that he was previously involved in incidents in which Maksić was the target.
According to the statement, Maksić has been exposed to pressure, threats and bullying in the assembly hall for years, including situations in which she was physically prevented from speaking. The councilwoman says that she has been active in Pancevo and in the provincial assembly for more than two years and that the attacks on her are getting fiercer, and that she did not expect such open misogyny, while, as she states, SNS claims that women's rights are its priority.
LSV councilor Danail Vučkovski assessed that displaying a T-shirt with such a picture and message affects every woman in Serbia, and that the opposition's leaving the session was "the only dignified response".
ZLF alleges that Maksić advocates transparency in the spending of city money and that because of this, it is constantly difficult for her to speak in the assembly.
Ten days ago, Maksić won a court case against the tabloid Informer because of the falsehoods they published about her.
This is not the first outburst by SNS officials, and by chance, towards women from ZLF.
In April of this year, the head of the SNS parliamentary group, Milenko Jovanov, told the MP of the Green-Left Front, Biljana Đorđević, that he thought she was "interesting" because she "put on a pink skirt" and "shortened the hems", which the opposition, including PSG MP Vladimir Pajić, assessed as a sexist and misogynistic statement. Đorđević, an assistant professor at the Faculty of Political Sciences, replied that neither he nor any other man should determine the length of a woman's skirt.
Additionally, bformer president of the municipality of Brus and SNS official Milutin Jeličić Jutka was sentenced in 2020 before the Basic Court in Kruševac to three months in prison for illicit sexual acts against his then colleague Marija Lukić, while he was acquitted for sexual harassment (sending messages) due to lack of evidence.
Ivan Tešić was previously mentioned in public in several disputes, but none of those allegations have been independently confirmed, nor are the court outcomes known.
In February 2020, Tešić claimed that an opposition member physically attacked him in the center of Pancevo, grabbed him by the neck and threatened him with words about "guys who break arms and legs for 200 euros", and SNS then demanded a reaction from the competent authorities.
In 2019, Tešić also claimed for Kurir that he was threatened and attacked by the vice-president of the People's Party, Nikola Jovanović, which Jovanović rejected and said was "exactly the opposite".
In April 2019, an activist described in a text on the Pančevo.city portal that Tešić attacked him while he was putting up posters at the City Administration and that he told him to think about the consequences, while the same portal states in a blog from December 2024 that Tešić insulted the opposition and journalists from the floor of the City Assembly.
ZLF's allegations about earlier incidents against Tamara Maksić, including physically preventing her from speaking, are for now based only on the organization's statement.
The case raises the question of the limits of behavior in local assemblies and how to act when the target is a political opponent because of her gender. For councilors and women in politics, it is important whether institutions and parties will react to such messages, because the ZLF indicates that this kind of procedure sends a message to other women and opposition actors that political engagement is risky.
For the citizens of Pancevo, it is a question of the quality of the discussion in the assembly that decides on the city budget and infrastructure. For voters ahead of the election, it is also a test of the parties' attitude towards women's rights, which the parties publicly emphasize.
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