Vojislav Koštunica
Serbian politician / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Vojislav Koštunica (Serbian Cyrillic: Војислав Коштуница, pronounced [ʋǒjislaʋ koʃtǔnit͡sa] ⓘ; born 24 March 1944) is a Serbian former politician who served as the last president of FR Yugoslavia from 2000 to 2003 and as the prime minister of Serbia from 2004 to 2008.[1]
Vojislav Koštunica | |
---|---|
Војислав Коштуница | |
8th Prime Minister of Serbia | |
In office 4 March 2004 – 7 July 2008 | |
President | Dragan Maršićanin (acting) Vojislav Mihailović (acting) Predrag Marković (acting) Boris Tadić |
Deputy | Miroljub Labus Ivana Dulić-Marković Božidar Đelić |
Preceded by | Zoran Živković |
Succeeded by | Mirko Cvetković |
4th President of FR Yugoslavia | |
In office 7 October 2000 – 7 March 2003 | |
Prime Minister | Momir Bulatović Zoran Žižić Dragiša Pešić |
Preceded by | Slobodan Milošević |
Succeeded by | Svetozar Marović (as President of Serbia and Montenegro) |
Personal details | |
Born | (1944-03-24) 24 March 1944 (age 80) Belgrade, German-occupied Serbia |
Political party | DS (1990–1992) DSS (1992–2014) |
Spouse |
Zorica Radović
(m. 1976; died 2015) |
Alma mater | University of Belgrade |
Signature | |
Koštunica won the 2000 Yugoslav presidential election as a candidate of a broad alliance Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS), which led to overthrow of Slobodan Milošević and the withdrawal of international sanctions against Yugoslavia. He strictly opposed cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and his party left the coalition government in protest at the decision to extradite Slobodan Milošević to the ICTY. After the 2003 Serbian parliamentary election, the first elections after the dissolution of DOS and assassination of Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić, Koštunica formed a minority government with the support of the Milošević's Socialist Party of Serbia and became the head of government. He was one of the crucial figures in the adoption of the first constitution of an independent Serbia, as well as for declaring Serbia a neutral country. During his second government (2007–2008), he opposed signing the Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) with the European Union, leading to the fall of the government after a year and the early elections won by pro-European parties.
He was one of the founders and the first president of the Democratic Party of Serbia from its creation in 1992 until 19 March 2014, when he resigned as party president and retired from active politics after his party failed to reach the 5% threshold to enter the Parliament on March 16 elections for the first time in its history.[2] In October 2014, he left the party after disagreements with the new party leadership over what he saw as their abandonment of the policy of political neutrality.[3] In November 2014, he was one of the founders of the right-wing eurosceptic "Statehood Movement of Serbia".[4][5]