Slobodan Uzelac

Slobodan Uzelac (Serbian Cyrillic: Слободан Узелац; born 9 August 1947)^[1] is a Croatian Serb politician who served as Deputy Prime Minister of Croatia for Regional Development, Reconstruction and Return in the second cabinet of Prime Minister Ivo Sanader and his successor in that position Jadranka Kosor. He is the first member of the Serb minority in Croatia to hold a cabinet position since the first Croatian multi-party elections were held in 1990.

Slobodan Uzelac
Слободан Узелац
Deputy Prime Minister for Regional Development, Reconstruction and Return
In office 12 January 2008 – 23 December 2011
Prime Minister	Ivo Sanader Jadranka Kosor
Preceded by	Damir Polančec
Succeeded by	Branko Grčić
Personal details
Born	(1947-08-09) 9 August 1947 (age 78) Kakma, PR Croatia, FPR Yugoslavia
Political party	Independent Democratic Serb Party
Alma mater	University of Belgrade
Profession	Defectologist

Biography

He offered his resignation in March 2008, after the Government of Croatia recognized Kosovo's declaration of independence^[2] However, Prime Minister Ivo Sanader did not accept his resignation, and the Independent Democratic Serb Party subsequently decided against withdrawing its member from the government.^[3]

Slobodan Uzelac received his Ph.D. in medicine from the University of Belgrade (Belgrade Medical School) in 1981.^[4] He was a guest lecturer at the Penn State University in 2001.

Uzelac is the president of Serbian Cultural Society Prosvjeta.

In addition to Serbo-Croatian, Uzelac also speaks English and Russian.^[5] He is a member of the advisory board of the democratic left magazine Novi Plamen.^[6]