Ivo Josipović

Ivo Josipović
3rd[a] President of Croatia
Incumbent
Assumed office 19 February 2010
Prime Minister	Jadranka Kosor Zoran Milanović
Preceded by	Stjepan Mesić
Member of Parliament
In office 22 December 2003 – 19 February 2010
Constituency	I electoral district
Personal details
Born	(1957-08-28) 28 August 1957 Zagreb, Yugoslavia (now Croatia)
Political party	League of Communists of Yugoslavia (Before 1990) Social Democratic Party (1990–1994, 2008–2010) Independent (2010–present)[1]
Spouse(s)	Tatjana Klepac
Children	Lana
Alma mater	University of Zagreb
Religion	Agnostic theism[2]
Signature
Website	Official website
^a 3rd counting from the 1990 Croatian parliamentary election. 19th Croatian president overall.

Ivo Josipović (Croatian pronunciation: [ǐːv̞ɔ jɔsǐːpɔv̞it͡ɕ] ( listen); born 28 August 1957) is the third President of Croatia since 2010.^[3][4][5] Josipović entered politics as a member of the League of Communists of Croatia (SKH), and played a key role in the democratic transformation of this party as the author of the first statute of the SDP that replaced the SKH-SKJ. He left politics in 1994, but returned in 2003 as an independent Member of Parliament. In addition to politics, Josipović has also worked as a university professor, legal expert, musician and composer.

Josipović entered the 2009–2010 presidential election as the official candidate of the SDP, which he had rejoined in 2008. In the first round he topped eleven rivals with 32.4% of the vote, and entered the second round with the independent candidate Milan Bandić who had secured 14.8%. He went from being almost unknown to the general public in Croatia to winning 60.26% in the final election. He campaigned for Nova Pravednost (New Justice), calling for a new social and legal framework to address the deep social injustices, corruption and organised crime. This includes the protection of individual rights and the promotion of such fundamental values as equality, human rights, LGBT rights, justice, diligence, social empathy and creativity.^[6]

Josipović was inaugurated as the third Croatian President on 18 February 2010, at St. Mark's Square, Zagreb. His term officially began at midnight on 19 February. At age 52, he became the youngest President of Croatia to date.

Biography

Ivo Josipović's parents are originally from Baška Voda in Dalmatia. Josipović, however, was born in Zagreb, where he attended both primary school and a secondary music school. As a teenager he was a promising football player.^[7]

He is married to Tatjana, a civil law professor and legal expert.^[8] They have one daughter, Lana (born c. 1991).^[8][9]

Apart from his native Croatian, he speaks English fluently and has some understanding of German.^[10]

Law

Josipović with wife Tatjana and daughter Lana.

Ivo Josipović attended the Faculty of Law of the University of Zagreb, from which he graduated passing his bar examination in 1980. He completed his M.A. in criminal law in 1985 and his Ph.D. in criminal sciences in 1994. He began as a lecturer at the same law faculty in 1984, and has since become a Professor for criminal procedure law, international criminal law and misdemeanour law.^[9]

Josipović has been a visiting researcher at a number of prestigious institutes including the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law in Freiburg in Breisgau, Germany, the Institute for Criminal Law of the University of Graz, Austria, as well as the HEUNI Institute (European Institute for Crime Prevention and Control) in Helsinki, Finland. He has also spent time as a private researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and Private International Law in Hamburg, Germany as well the Yale University in the USA. As member of several domestic and international legal and artists' associations he published over 85 academic and professional papers in domestic and international journals.^[9] In year 1994, he co-founded the independent Hrvatski pravni centar (Croatian Law Center).^[9] Josipović helped to save 180 Croatian prisoners of war from Serbian detention centers and has represented Croatia before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).^[11] He participated in several international projects and acted as a Council of Europe expert in evaluation of prisons in Ukraine, Mongolia and Azerbaijan.^[9]

Music

After graduating from a secondary music school he enrolled at the Composition Department of the Zagreb Music Academy under the tutelage of renowned scholar Stanko Horvat. He graduated in 1983 majoring in composition.^[8] Between 1987 and 2004 Josipović was also a lecturer at the Zagreb Music Academy.^[12]

Josipović composed some 50 chamber music pieces for various instruments, chamber orchestra and symphony orchestra. In 1985 he won an award from the European Broadcasting Union for his composition "Samba da Camera" and in 1999 he was awarded the Porin Award for the same composition,^[13] which was followed by another Porin Award in 2000 for his piece titled "Tisuću lotosa" ("A Thousand Lotuses").^[14] His most successful pieces also include "Igra staklenih perli" (The Glass Bead Game) and "Tuba Ludens".^[9] These pieces are performed by numerous musicians in Croatia and abroad.^[9] Since 1991 Josipović also served as director of the Music Biennale Zagreb (MBZ), an international festival of contemporary classical music.^[8]

During the 2010 election campaign Josipović announced that as president he will compose an opera based on the murder of John Lennon.^[15]

Politics

Victory speech of Ivo Josipović on 10 January 2010.

In 1980 Ivo Josipović became a member of the League of Communists of Croatia. He played a key role in the democratic transformation of this party as the author of the first statute of the Social Democratic Party of Croatia (SDP). In 1994, he left politics and the SDP, dedicating himself to law and music. Upon the invitation of Ivica Račan, acting Prime Minister at the time, he returned to politics in 2003, and became an independent MP with the SDP and Vice-President of the SDP Representatives' Group in the Croatian Parliament. During his mandate in 2005, he was also a representative in the Assembly of the City of Zagreb. In 2007, he was re-elected to the Croatian Parliament. He formally renewed his SDP membership in 2008. On July 12, 2009 he was elected as the party's official presidential candidate.^[9] As MP he served on various parliamentary committees dealing with legislative, judiciary and constitutional questions, as well as for defining parliamentary rules of procedure and the political system.^[9]

Presidential election

• On 20 June 2009, Josipović was nominated as one of the official SDP candidates for the Croatian presidential election, 2009–2010.^[16] He won in a primary against Ljubo Jurčić on 12 July, becoming the party's official candidate.
• On 27 December 2009, Josipović won the first round of the presidential election with 32.42% of the vote. He faced Milan Bandić (runner-up with 14.83%) in the second round on 10 January 2010.
• On 10 January 2010 he was elected as the 3rd president of Croatia with 60.26% of the vote, beating Milan Bandić in the second round.^[17]

President of Croatia

Polish President Lech Kaczyński with Ivo Josipović in 2010

In April 2010, Josipović met with the Bosnian Croat Catholic archbishop cardinal Vinko Puljić and the head of the Islamic Community reis Mustafa Cerić and the three made a joint visit at the sites of Ahmići massacre and Križančevo selo killings, and paid respect to the victims.^[18] Ivo Josipović made an official visit to Bosnia during which he addressed the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina,^[19] and in his speech he expressed a "deep regret" for Croatia's involvement in efforts to divide Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 1990s, resulting in the Croat-Bosniak war and suffering for many people on both sides.^[20] The presidency of the Croatian Democratic Union condemned the apology.^[21] Jadranka Kosor, the current Prime Minister and member of the Croatian Democratic Union, criticized Josipović and accused him of breaching the constitution.^[22] The vice president of the Croatian Democratic Union, Andrija Hebrang, contested that Josipović should have visited Bleiburg before Ahmići and Grabovica.^[23]

He has chosen a couple of counselors who have caused scandals.^[24] Josipović's first option as counselour for rural areas and agriculture was Mato Mlinarić, who was dismissed two hours after being appointed when the press discovered that he had some non-paid tax debts.^[24][25] Former journalist Drago Pilsel served as Josipović's counselor for a month, but left the position after a publishing a column in which he insulted his opponents.^[26][27]

In May 2010, Josipović met the leaders of the Republika Srpska Rajko Kuzmanović and Milorad Dodik, as well as the prominent Bosniak leader Sulejman Tihić, and visited the site of the Sijekovac killings to pay respect to the victims.^[28] The site and the visit provoked some controversy in the Croatian public, with allegations of impropriety levelled against President Josipović and the authorities of Republika Srpska for misattributing some of the casualties.^[29] During a visit to Israel in February 2012, Josipović apologized for atrocities committed against Jews by the Croatian Ustaše regime during the 1940s. Josipović's apology was accompanied by criticism in Croatia because his predecessor Stjepan Mesić had already apologized earlier for the crimes. Josipović also said that "he is the son of Tito's partisan".^[30]

Standing in opinion polls

Ivo Josipović's approval ratings since taking office (conducted by IpsosPuls).

In the year 2010, President Josipović had on average maintained a very high 81% approval rating (according to Ipsos), surpassing the former president Stjepan Mesić.^[31] With ratings reaching as high as 84% in May, August and December^[32] in 2010 and 2011, Ivo Josipović was ranked as the most popular Croatian politician in the past 20 years (with the possible exception of Franjo Tuđman), since Croatia's secession from Yugoslavia.^[33] However, while he remains the most popular Croatian active politician, in the first half of the 2012 his popularity suffered a decline: from ratings of over 80% at the end of 2011 and 84% in February, 2012, to 74.2% in March, 2012 and 68.8% in April 2012.^[34]

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ivo Josipović.

• Ivo Josipović on Facebook
• Ivo Josipović Main campaign page (Croatian)
• Ivo Josipović Personal homepage (Croatian)
• Ivo Josipović at the Croatian Parliament (Sabor) official web site (Croatian)
• Ivo Josipović at the Croatian Composers' Society official web site (Croatian)
• List of musical works (Croatian)
• SDP-ovac koji je devet godina izbjegavao Račana (Croatian)

v t e Presidents of Croatia Presidents of the Presidium of the Parliamenta (1943–1953) Vladimir Nazor Karlo-Gašpar Mrazović Vicko Krstulović Speakers of Parliamentb (1953–1974) Zlatan Sremec Vladimir Bakarić Ivan Krajačić Jakov Blažević Ivo Perišin Presidents of the Presidency (1974–1991) Jakov Blažević Marijan Cvetković Milutin Baltić Jakša Petrić Pero Car Ema Derosi-Bjelajac Ante Marković Ivo Latin Franjo Tuđman Presidents (since 1991) Franjo Tuđman Vlatko Pavletić (acting) Zlatko Tomčić (acting) Stjepan Mesić Ivo Josipović a The President of the Presidium of the Parliament was the office of the head of state 1946-1953, the office of the Speaker was separate; b Speakers of the Parliament were the formal heads of state of Croatia between 1953 and 1974.