Željko Komšić
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Željko Komšić
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| Image:Lech Kaczyński - Zeljko Komsic (1).jpg |
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| In office 6 July 2007 – 7 March 2008 |
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| Prime Minister | Nikola Špirić |
| Preceded by | Nebojša Radmanović |
| Succeeded by | Haris Silajdžić |
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| Assumed office 6 November 2006 |
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| Preceded by | Ivo Miro Jović |
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| Born | 20 January 1964 Sarajevo, Yugoslavia |
| Political party | SPB-S |
| Spouse | Sabina |
| Alma mater | University of Sarajevo Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service |
| Profession | Lawyer |
| Religion | Roman Catholic (lapsed) Atheist |
Željko Komšić (pronounced [ʒɛlʲkɔ komʃitɕ]) (born January 20, 1964) is a Bosnian-Herzegovinian politician. On October 1, 2006, he was elected to a four-year term as the member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
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[edit] Early life and the war in Bosnia
Komšić has a law degree from University of Sarajevo and he also studied at Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. He is a lawyer by profession.
During the Bosnian war, he served in the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and received the Golden Lilly — the highest military decoration awarded by the Bosnian-Herzegovinian government.
[edit] Political career
After the war, Komšić embarked on a political career as a member of the Social Democratic Party of Bosnia and Herzegovina (SDP BiH). He was a councilman of the municipality of Novo Sarajevo and in the city council of Sarajevo, before being elected the head of the municipal government of Novo Sarajevo in 2000. He then also served as the deputy mayor of Sarajevo for two years.
When the coalition "Alliance for Democratic Change" came to power in 1998, Komšić was named the ambassador to the now defunct Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in Belgrade. He resigned this commission after the election in 2002 when SDP went back into opposition.
He is one of the three vice-presidents of the Social Democratic Party.
[edit] 2006 general election
Komšić SDP's candidate for the Croatian seat in the Presidency at the Bosnia and Herzegovina general election, 2006. He received 97,267 or 41% of the vote, ahead of Ivo Miro Jović (25%), Božo Ljubić (18%) and Mladen Ivanković-Lijanović (9%). He was inaugurated into office on October 1, 2006.
His victory was widely attributed to the split in the HDZ BiH party, in which two factions, one led by Jović and the other by Ljubić split their voting body in two and enabled the SDP to achieve majority.
Komšić is staunchly opposed by the some nationalist Bosnian Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina who are supporters of HDZ. He is a self-declared Croat, and a baptized Roman Catholic (coming from a religious family), but unlike most of his compatriots (by and large right-wing), he calls the language he speaks Bosnian (rather than Croatian), and is an atheist himself. He does not have a dual citizenship (both BiH and Croatian), as many other Croats from BiH do, although his wife does. His wife, Sabina, is an ethnic Bosniak.
[edit] External links
- Official web site of the Bosnia and Herzegovina Presidency (Bosnian)
- Official web site of Željko Komšić (Bosnian)
- Official blog of Željko Komšić (Bosnian)
| Political offices | ||
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| Preceded by Nebojša Radmanović |
President of Bosnia and Herzegovina 2007 – 2008 |
Succeeded by Haris Silajdžić |
| Preceded by Ivo Miro Jović |
Croat Member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina 2006 – present |
Incumbent |
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