Marinika Tepić

Tepić appeared in the twenty-fourth position on the LSV's electoral list in the 2012 Vojvodina provincial election. During this period, half of the Vojvodina assembly's 120 seats were determined by proportional representation and the other half by election in single-member constituencies. The LSV won eight proportional seats, and Tepić was not elected.[4] The party was included in a coalition government formed after the election, however, and Tepić was appointed as one of its Government members, serving as provincial Secretary for Sports and Youth.[5]

In 2013, Tepić oversaw the introduction of the first sex education classes in the province, following a ten-month consultation process. She noted that ninety-five per cent of parents surveyed by the Secretariat had approved of the initiative and argued that the program was unlikely to face a strong degree of opposition, as had a similar initiative in neighbouring Croatia.[6] This notwithstanding, some educational material released through the initiative provoked a backlash from socially conservative groups; the Democratic Party of Serbia, which held four seats in the assembly, argued that one publication "promoted homosexuality" and that Tepić should resign as secretary. She defended the material and remained in her position.[1]

She received the sixth position on the LSV's list in the 2016 provincial election, which was conducted entirely under a system of proportional representation. The party won nine seats; she was declared elected but declined her mandate in order to serve in the National Assembly, to which she had been elected in the concurrent 2016 Serbian parliamentary election.[7][8] Both the republic-level and provincial elections were won by the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) and its allies; a new government was formed in Vojvodina, and Tepić stood down from her cabinet position on 20 June 2016.

The LSV contested the 2014 Serbian parliamentary election on the list of former Serbian president Boris Tadić. Tepić received the sixth position on the list and was elected when it won eighteenth mandates.[9] She declined her mandate, however, in order to continue serving in the Vojvodina government. Officially, she was a member of the National Assembly from 16 to 24 April 2014, before her resignation took effect.[10]

She received the eleventh position on Tadić's list in the 2016 election and was elected to a second term when the list won thirteen mandates.[11] As the Progressive Party and its allies won the election, Tepić and the other LSV delegates served in opposition. This notwithstanding, she was appointed as head of the assembly's committee on European integration. Tepić resigned from the LSV in January 2017, in protest against party leader Nenad Čanak's decision to run in the 2017 Serbian presidential election rather than supporting the candidacy of Saša Janković.[12] During the presidential election, she served on Janković's political council.[13] In April 2017, having lost her initial party affiliation, she was removed from all of her Assembly committee memberships.[14]

Tepić joined Zoran Živković's New Party in April 2017, thereby becoming its second member in the current sitting of the assembly.[15] She was appointed to the party's presidency and was named as its provincial leader in Vojvodina. The following month, Živković and Tepić joined with three former members of the It's Enough – Restart association to form a new parliamentary group called the "Independent MPs Club".[16]

Tepić, a vocal opponent of fascism, was harassed by anonymous graffiti messages from extreme right-wing groups in 2017; one such message read, "Corneliu Codreanu, not Marinika Čobanu." The New Party condemned these messages and argued that they were being condoned by Serbia's government and state organs.[17] In the same period, Tepić reported receiving death threats from right-wing groups, and Živković urged the government to assess whether she required state protection.[18][19] Meho Omerović, the chair of the assembly's committee on human and minority rights, condemned the threats against her and urged the police to ensure her safety.[20]

The New Party contested the March 2018 Belgrade City Assembly election in a coalition with the Democratic Party and the Social Democratic Party; the list did not cross the electoral threshold to win representation. Tepić resigned her leadership positions in the New Party the following month, saying that the party had failed to respond to the message of the election.[21] Some media sources interpreted this to mean that she had resigned from the party, but she later clarified that she was still a member and, moreover, was not calling for Živković to resign as leader.[22] A June 2018 news article in Danas continued to identify her as a New Party representative.[23] It is unclear when she ceased to be a member, but she was no longer actively engaged with the party by September 2018.[24]

On 19 April 2019, Tepić was selected as a vice-president of the newly formed Party of Freedom and Justice (SPP).[25]

While Tepić no longer holds any committee assignments in the assembly, she remained a member of the parliamentary friendship groups with Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands until August 2020.[26]

Since joining the Party of Freedom and Justice, Tepić has been active in discovering and informing the public of the affairs of the ruling populist SNS-led regime.[27]