Miodrag Živković

Miodrag "Miko" Živković (Montenegrin: Miodrag "Miko" Živković/Миодраг "Мико" Живковић) (born 20 September 1957 in Kotor, Montenegro, SFR Yugoslavia) is the president of the opposition Liberal Party of Montenegro and one of its representatives in the Parliament of Montenegro.

Born to father Đorđije (teacher) and mother Vojislava (homemaker), Živković finished primary and secondary school in Kotor. In 1976 he enrolled at the University of Belgrade's Law School, but graduated at the Veljko Vlahović University in Titograd in 1981.

Political career

He finished the judicial exam in Belgrade in 1982. The same year he was accepted as a judge of Kotor's Basic Court, a post which he held for 8 years continually, in parallel with State Court official for a short time, until he left the state institutions in 1990, disappointed in the state's ideological policies under Momir Bulatović, Milo Đukanović and Svetozar Marović of the Democratic Party of Socialists of Montenegro that favored authoritarianism and Serbian nationalism.

LSCG

He opened the same year a private business as a lawyer and actively worked in the liberal movement that that formed itself as the Liberal Alliance of Montenegro in 1991, starting his political career as delegate of LSCG to the municipal board in Kotor. In 1994 he was elected President of LSCG's municipal board in Kotor and greatly contributed to the Liberals' popularity and strength in Kotor's municipality. After May 1998 at which LSCG was considerably weakened and when the improvised pro-democratic bloc of Milo Đukanović won, he stood up as the Liberals' leader, breaking away from the somewhat nationalist tendencies of his predecessors. At the LSCG conference in late January 1999 in Igalo, Živković was elected as the party's new leader, replacing Slavko Perović who handed in his resignation.

Repairing LSCG's position in 2001, Živković cooperated with the pro-Serbian Together for Change opposition political alliance but due to ideological difference mainly centered in his support of an independent Montenegro, he supported a minority DPS-SDP government of Filip Vujanović. In 2002 he opposed the Belgrade Agreement which formed the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro fully reintegrating Montenegro into a common state with Serbia, bringing down the government with the rest of the opposition. However his position was considerably weakened at the same year's parliamentary elections, when Milo Đukanović managed to form a government alone.

LPCG

After in vain attempting to recuperate LSCG's losses, he was excluded from the Alliance and joined a fraction known as the Liberal Party of Montenegro. He ran at the repeated 2003 presidential election on 11 May attaining second place with 68,133 votes or 31.4% of those who voted and lost to DPS candidate Filip Vujanović. On 31 October 2004 LPCG held a Constitutional Assembly on which he was elected Party's president and the Liberal Alliance subsequently officially dissolving as a political party. At the 2006 independence referendum he joined Milo Djukanovic's Bloc for an independent Montenegro and served as one of its key leaders, bringing it to a victory. He led LP CG into a coalition with the Bosniac Party that ran together at the same year's subsequent constitutional parliamentary election, managing to pass the census.

For the successes, he was reelected Party President on 25 November 2006.

Private life

He is married to Milica Ranković and in 1987 they had a daughter, Sanja.

External links

• Biography at the Liberal Party of Montenegro website (Montenegrin)