Tomislav Nikolić
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Tomislav Nikolić (Serbian: Томислав Николић) (born on February 15, 1952) is a Serbian right-wing politician, the current leader of the Serbian Radical Party (temporary while Vojislav Šešelj is at the ICTY).
Nikolić was born in Kragujevac. He trained as a construction technician, and worked at the construction company "Žegrap". He led the construction of the Belgrade-Bar railroad, as well as conducting other works in Majdanpek, Priboj, Prijepolje, Trebinje, Belgrade and elsewhere in the former Yugoslavia. He headed the investments department of the company "22. decembar" for twelve years. For two years he was the technical director of the communal works in Kragujevac.
In the 1990s, he became a member of the People's Radical Party, which merged with the Serbian Chetnik Movement to form the Serbian Radical Party. Nikolić became a member of the new party on January 23, 1991. He was soon elected the party's vice-president, and at the last three Congresses of Serbian Radicals he was elected deputy president.
Nikolić has been a deputy in the National Assembly of Serbia since 1991, the only one to be elected continuously since that date. During the rule of Slobodan Milošević and the Socialist Party of Serbia, he and Šešelj were sentenced to three months in prison which he served in Gnjilane.
In March 1998, however, the SRS went into coalition with the SPS, and Nikolić became the vice-president of the Government of Serbia, and by the end of 1999 the vice-president of the government of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
Nikolić ran in the Serbian presidential elections, 2000, finishing in third place behind Vojislav Koštunica and Slobodan Milošević.
Nikolić was also a presidential candidate in the Serbian presidential elections, 2004. In the first round, he won 30.1% of the vote. In the second round he won 45.4% of the vote but lost to Boris Tadić.
In 2005, the Serbian media published statements from Nataša Kandić claiming that during the Yugoslav wars Nikolić participated in a paramilitary group that executed several civilians in the Croatian village of Antin north of Vinkovci. Nikolić responded that, while he was indeed in Antin, not a single civilian died during that period. The Serbian Radical Party also sued Kandić for libel.
Nikolić has a significant following in Serbia, but has many critics, who regard him as a member of the far right, incapable of any compromise either with the West or with centrist parties. He is well known for his robustness, sometimes extending to open insult and swearing at political opponents, including from the dispatch box in parliament. On one occasion, when Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić was having to use a walking stick due to an injury he sustained to his leg while playing football, Nikolić warned during a speech to his supporters that Tito, the communist dictator of Yugoslavia, also had a problem with his leg shortly before his death. This statement achieved retrospective significance due to the assassination of Đinđić a few days later. To many that speech was more than just a coincidence. Nikolić however ruled out any connection, saying he was profoundly sorry and that he would not have spoken as he did if he had known what was about to happen. However, he refused to withdraw his statement that he was glad at the death of Slavko Ćuruvija, an opposition journalist shot by an unknown gunman during the Milošević regime.
Tomislav Nikolić has published thirteen books as of 2005, mostly about politics. He and his wife Dragica have two sons, Radomir and Branislav.
