Dragoljub Mićunović

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Dragoljub Mićunović
Dragoljub Mićunović
Speaker of Parliament of Serbia and Montenegro
In office
March, 2003 – 2004
Born 14 June 1930 (1930-06-14) (age 77)
Topolica village near Kuršumlija, Kingdom of Yugoslavia
Nationality Serb
Political party Democratic Party
Profession Philosopher, Politician

Dragoljub Mićunović (Serbian Cyrillic: Драгољуб Мићуновић) (born June 14, 1930 in Topolica village near Kuršumlija, Kingdom of Yugoslavia) is a prominent Serbian politician.

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[edit] Early life

Mićunović's childhood was spent in Skopje where his father worked as a civil servant. Following the invasion of Kingdom of Yugoslavia by the Axis forces and the Bulgarian occupation of the country's southern parts his family escaped to Serbia. After the WW II, Mićunović spent two years in the Goli Otok concentration camp. After his release, he completed his education, and in 1960 he became assistant on the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade. He was part of the Marxist humanist Praxis School, and in 1975 he was expelled from the faculty, together with seven other colleagues.

[edit] Politics

Mićunović was one of the members of the Founding Committee of the Democratic Party in December 1989 who began the process of re-establishing the Democratic Party (DS). He was elected the first President of the re-established Democratic Party at the founding party conference on February 3, 1990.

He remained the party's president until 1994 when he was squeezed out from the top spot by Zoran Đinđić. Mićunović resigned and with a group of prominent intellectuals, founded the Fond Center for Democracy, a non-governmental organization for the development of civil society and the non-governmental sector, civil education and preparation of political and social reforms.

In 1996, Dragoljub Mićunović founded a new political party, Democratic Centre, of which he was elected president.

He has been an MP in the State and Federal legislatures for more than 10 years. At the first multiparty elections in Serbia in 1990, he was elected a Member of Parliament of Serbia on behalf of the Democratic Party. As a Member of Parliament on the state level, he was elected a delegate to the Chamber of the Republics (upper chamber) of the Federal Parliament of Yugoslavia in the period 1991-1992. At the Federal elections in 1992, Mićunović was elected a Member of the Federal Parliament as a representative of the Democratic Party. As a member of the opposition coalition “Zajedno”, he was re-elected a Member of Federal Parliament in the Chamber of Citizens (lower chamber) in 1996.

At the federal elections in 2000, as one of the leaders of the Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS) coalition, Mićunović was again elected a Member of Parliament in the Chamber of Citizens of the Federal Assembly. After the victory of the Democratic Opposition of Serbia in October of 2000, he was elected President of the Chamber of Citizens of the Federal Assembly. When the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro was established, in March of 2003, Dragoljub Mićunović was elected President of the Parliament of Serbia and Montenegro (to 2004).

Dragoljub Mićunović is the winner of the first award for tolerance awarded by the Ministry for Human Rights, OSCE and B92 TV and radio station. For his contribution to the admission of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to the Council of Europe he was presented an award by the European Movement in Serbia. In 2001 he was awarded by the Slovakian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for "active contribution to the work of the Community for democratic change in Yugoslavia which assembled representatives of different political parties, civil society and international organizations".

Dragoljub Mićunović's Democratic Centre party merged into the Democratic Party in 2004 and he was one of the leading candidates on the Democratic Party list in the Serbian Parliamentary elections held on January 21, 2007.

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Leaders of the Democratic Party (Serbia)
Dragoljub Mićunović | Zoran Đinđić | Boris Tadić