BELGRADE, May 23 (Xinhua) -- Democratic Party (DS) candidate Oliver Dulic was elected Serbia's new parliament speaker on Wednesday, the official Tanjug news agency reported.

    During the roll-call vote, Dulic, the only candidate for parliament speaker, had the support of 135 parliamentary members while 98 voted against him and two abstained.

    Dulic's election came ten days after Tomislav Nikolic, a member of the ultra-nationalist Serbian Radical Party (SRS) who had held the post of parliamentary speaker for only five days, resigned under pressure from the West. The European Union had called Nikolic's election "a return to the dark days" of late Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.

    Born in Belgrade on Jan. 21, 1975, Dulic completed his elementary and secondary schooling in Subotica and graduated from the Belgrade University's School of Medicine in 1999.

    Dulic's political engagement started in 1996, when he was one of the leaders of the 1996/97 student protest and member of the protest's Steering Committee.