Dragoljub Mićunović

Dragoljub Mićunović
President of the Assembly of Serbia and Montenegro
In office March 3, 2003 – March 4, 2004
Preceded by	None
Succeeded by	Milorad Drljevic
Personal details
Born	14 June 1930 (1930-06-14) (age 81) Merdare (near Kuršumlija), Kingdom of Yugoslavia
Nationality	Serb
Political party	Democratic Party
Alma mater	University of Belgrade
Profession	Philosopher, Politician

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

Early life

Mićunović's childhood was spent in Skopje (then known as Skoplje) 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 southern parts of the country (where he was living), his family escaped to an area of present-day Serbia (although still an Axis entity). After the World War II, Mićunović spent two years in the Goli Otok concentration camp. After his release, he completed his education, and in 1960 he became an assistant at the University of Belgrade Faculty of Philosophy. He was part of the Marxist humanist Praxis School, and in 1975 he was expelled from the faculty, together with seven other colleagues.

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 2000, he was elected President of the Chamber of Citizens of the Federal Assembly on November 3, 2000. When the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro was established, in March 2003, Dragoljub Mićunović was elected President of the Parliament of Serbia and Montenegro on March 3 that year. He held this position to March 3, 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 FR 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.

External links

• Interview with Mr. Mićunović in English
• Memoirs of Mićunović [1] [2] [3] (in Serbian)
• Link to biography

References

• [4]

Persondata
Name	Micunovic, Dragoljub
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	June 14, 1930
Place of birth	Merdare village near Kuršumlija, Kingdom of Yugoslavia
Date of death
Place of death