Dušan Bajatović
Dušan Bajatović (; born 29 November 1967) is a Serbian politician and entrepreneur. He has served in the National Assembly of Serbia since 2007 as a member of the Socialist Party of Serbia and is a former member of both the Assembly of Serbia and Montenegro and the Assembly of Vojvodina. Once an ally of Slobodan Milošević, he was later a prominent advocate of moving the Socialist Party away from Milošević's legacy. Since 2008, he has been the general manager of the powerful public utility Srbijagas. Early life and private career Bajatović was born in Ravno Selo, Vrbas, Vojvodina, in what was then the Socialist Republic of Serbia in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. He has a degree in electrical engineering with a major in systems management and a degree in economics with a major in agro-economics. In 2003, Bajatović purchased TV Most in Novi Sad from the Socialist Party for three million dollars (which he acknowledged was on loan). He was awarded a regional broadcasting permit in 2007, even as many other stations with a similar ideological perspective were being shut down. Sometimes criticized by rivals for his perceived level of wealth, Bajatović once remarked, "I am a Socialist, but I do not want to be a social case." On another occasion, he said, "I have no doubt that I am one of the most strongly attacked and criticized figures in the country, who is believed to be immensely rich. Sometimes I am accused of being overbearing because I am opinionated and do not flinch from expressing my views. I have no problem with all the criticism nor the harsh accusations in some media against me. I have no problem with my big mouth either." Early political career A member of the Youth Council of Serbia before the breakup of Yugoslavia, Bajatović was a founding member of the Socialist Party of Serbia in 1990. During the period of Slobodan Milošević's rule, he was known for maintaining good relations with the independent, anti-Milošević media and for being able to express his party's views on difficult questions. In the late 1990s, he served on the executive of the Socialist Party's provincial committee in Vojvodina and was a spokesperson for the party's city council group in Novi Sad. In June 1999, in the midst of the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, he announced a humanitarian aid package organized by the party destined for Priština. Bajatović later became the chair of the Socialist Party in Vojvodina and a member of the party's executive committee in Serbia as a whole. He emerged as a high-profile spokesperson for the party in 2001, debriefing the media on such matters as Slobodan Milošević's state of mind in the buildup to his arrest, the party's June 2001 rally and its demands for the government to release Milošević and end the extradition of Serbian citizens to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague, and Milošević's decision to remain as Socialist Party leader in the aftermath