9th Prime Minister of Croatia

Jadranka Kosor

Jadranka Kosor (born 1 July 1953) is a Croatian politician who served as Prime Minister of Croatia from 2009 to 2011, having taken office following the sudden resignation of her predecessor Ivo Sanader. Kosor was the first woman to become Prime Minister of Croatia since independence.

Kosor started working as a journalist, following her graduation from Faculty of Law of University of Zagreb. During the Croatian War of Independence, she hosted a radio show dealing with refugee problems and disabled war veterans. She joined the centre-rightCroatian Democratic Union (HDZ) in 1989 and quickly climbed up the party hierarchy. In 1995 she was elected party vice-president and was elected to serve in Parliament for the first time. After the death of President and longtime HDZ leader Franjo Tuđman, Kosor supported Ivo Sanader's successful party leadership bid in 2000. Three years later, her party won the parliamentary election and Kosor became the Minister of Family, Veterans' Affairs and Inter-generational Solidarity in the Sanader I and, later, Sanader II cabinet, during which time she served as Deputy Prime Minister as well. In the 2005 presidential election she ran as a representative of HDZ, but lost to incumbent President Stipe Mesić in the second round. After the abrupt resignation of Sanader, Kosor managed to form a functioning parliamentary majority and was approved to her new post as Prime Minister in July 2009, also becoming leader of her party. Kosor was the party's candidate for Prime Minister in the 2011 general election, but HDZ lost in a landslide over thecentre-left Kukuriku coalition, led by the Social Democratic Party. Kosor handed power to the new Prime Minister, Zoran Milanović, in December 2011.

As Prime Minister, Kosor failed to commit to structural reforms and introduced new taxes as a response to the ongoing economic crisis. During her tenure, she strongly advocated a zero tolerance policy to political corruption and organized crime. This uncompromising stance, along with the new criminal code passed before her term began, opened the door to unprecedented efforts to combat corruption. This resulted in numerous arrests of influential business-people and politicians from across the political spectrum, although most of them members of HDZ, which severely damaged the party's reputation. The discoveries made by prosecutors were far-reaching and criminal charges were even raised against former Prime Minister and Kosor's own political mentor Ivo Sanader, who would later be charged with 10 years in prison for criminal activity and abuse of power. In foreign policy, Kosor and her Slovenian counterpart Borut Pahor were successful in solving the long-standing border dispute and she is credited with successfully finishing the negotiating process of the Croatian accession to the European Union. On 9 December 2011, she and President Ivo Josipović signed the Treaty of Accession in Brussels. A moderate conservative, Kosor ran for another term as party leader after losing the election, however was defeated by the more conservative Tomislav Karamarko. After months of criticizing his leadership and the new party platform, she was expelled from HDZ by the party's High Court for damaging the party's reputation.

Politics

In 1995, Kosor became a representative in the Croatian Parliament as a member of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ). She was also the vice-president of the Croatian Parliament. From 1999 to 2000, she was president of the HDZ's Women's Association Katarina Zrinski. She is credited with the number of female candidates from the HDZ in the 2000 elections doubling.

Kosor was the vice-president of the HDZ party between 1995 and 1997, and from 2002 up to 2009, when she became the president of the party. In 2003, she became the minister in the Croatian department for Family, Veterans and Inter-generational Solidarity in the Croatian Government of Ivo Sanader.

HDZ nominated her as their presidential candidate for the presidential election of 2005. In the first round, she overtook Boris Mikšićby a few percent to reach the second place. She then faced off Stipe Mesić in the second round, but lost.

In July 2009, she was politically installed as the head of the Croatian Democratic Union following the resignation of Ivo Sanader.

Prime Minister

On 1 July 2009, Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader suddenly and unexpectedly resigned, and suggested Kosor as the next prime minister. With the support of the coalition partners Kosor went to the President Stjepan Mesić who invited her to form a government. This resulted in the formation of the Kosor cabinet which contained most members of the previous Sanader administration. On July 6,Parliament approved the proposed cabinet with 83 votes in favor out of 153 members and Kosor was confirmed as the first female Prime Minister of Croatia after independence - actually the third in the history of the republic after two female Prime Ministers of Socialist Republic of Croatia. The Opposition was not pleased with this development calling Sanader a coward and Kosor his puppet saying that an early general election was necessary.

 

The object of mass VOTE: 

Jadranka Kosor.  

Croatia

Rate the damage it causes (does not cause) the object of VOTE to the European Commonwealth.

Method of ethical VOTE is to choose one of the following  values:

 0 - moral, there is no prejudice to the European community;
-1, -2, -3 - minor damage, harm to the European community;
-4, -5, -6 - damage of medium gravity for the European community;
-7, -8, -9, -10 - substantial damage, harm to the European community.

 

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