Željko Hubač

He was one of the 14 signatories of the citizens' group that put the list forward. He was third on the Student List – Students Win, which won the most votes in the Serbian parliamentary election of 25 October 2026.

Career

Raised in Zenica and Leskovac, Hubač trained as an electrical engineer before graduating in dramaturgy from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade in 1996. His plays have had 48 premieres in professional theatres in Serbia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Japan and Russia, productions of them have won more than 60 awards, and his texts have won ten awards, including the Branislav Nušić Award in 1996 and 1998. He has also written television series and a feature film, was a dramaturg at the Serbian National Theatre in Novi Sad, founded the theatre paper Pozorišne novine and edited it from 2008 to 2018 and wrote theatre criticism for the daily Danas. He received the National Theatre's award for artistic contribution in 2010 and Leskovac's October Award in 2016.

Positions

In a September 2026 interview with Izlaz, Hubač called for raising the culture budget to at least one percent, distributing money only through open calls with no discretionary decisions, urgent help for the independent scene and decentralising culture so that local cultural centres become hubs. He accused the Serbian Progressive Party of dominating the media during the campaign, said talk of violence after the vote was being spread by the authorities, and hoped for a peaceful handover of power on the "Hungarian model". He also criticised the management of the National Theatre and the silence of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts about it.

Controversies

In December 2024 the parliamentary culture committee ruled his nomination by the Union of Drama Artists to the Council of the media regulator REM invalid, saying his written consent was missing, which he disputed; committee member Nebojša Bakarec of the Serbian Progressive Party called him "anti-Serb" and said he should not work in any state body. Hubač said the remark fell under the anti-discrimination law (Vreme), and he withdrew his REM candidacy in 2025 (Nova). At a REM Council session in October 2026, council member Rodoljub Šabić objected that Informer had called Hubač the worst anti-Serb extremist; Informer's editor Dragan J. Vučićević replied by calling him "the most extreme anti-Serb extremist" (N1).

Summarised automatically from the linked sources. National Theatre in Belgrade · Studenti u blokadi (Student List) · Nova · Vreme · N1 · Izlaz