Janez Drnovšek

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Janez Drnovšek
2nd President of Slovenia
Incumbent
Assumed office December 22, 2002
Preceded by	Milan Kučan

Born	May 17, 1950 Celje, Slovenia
Political party	Liberal Democracy of Slovenia (1992-2006)

Janez Drnovšek (pronounced: IPA, [janɛz dərnɒuʃɛk] listen (help·info)) (born May 17, 1950) is the current President of Slovenia and the former president of Yugoslavia. He was born in Celje, then part of Yugoslavia, today in Slovenia.

Drnovšek graduated with a degree in economics in 1973, and defended his master's thesis in 1981. He defended his Ph.D. dissertation in 1986. Meanwhile he worked at a construction company, then at a bank branch in his home region Zasavje (central Slovenia, at the banks of the Sava river) and also one year as an economic advisor at the Yugoslav embassy in Cairo, Egypt. In 1986 he was chosen to be a delegate at the Slovenian republic assembly (parliament) and also the chamber of republics and provinces of Yugoslav parliament.

In 1989 Stane Dolanc, a Slovenian representative to the collective presidency of Yugoslavia, retired. The Slovenian government, aware of upcoming democratisation, decided to organize elections between two candidates for the position. Drnovšek, till then rather unknown to the public, defeated Marko Bulc, the government's preferred candidate, and thus became the first elected statesman in communist Yugoslavia. The other Yugoslav republics' governments, refusing any democratic changes, did not agree with this new way of selecting statesmen so the Slovenian republic parliament had to confirm the people's will. He served as chairman of the collective presidency from 1989 until 1990. While he was chairman of the presidency, he was also chairman of the Non-Aligned Movement and the commander of the Yugoslav People's Army. Until the collapse of the communist regime he was an active member of the Communist Party. Soon after the democratisation, Slovenia seceded from Yugoslavia, but Drnovšek continued to be successful in politics. He was the former second prime minister of independent Slovenia from 1992 to 2002 (with a brief interruption for a few months in 2000) after Lojze Peterle, the first Prime Minister. He was elected to be the second president of Slovenia for a term from 2002 to 2007.

From 1992 to 2002 he was president of the Liberal Democracy of Slovenia (Liberalna Demokracija Slovenije - LDS) party, a legal successor of Slovenian Association of Socialist Youth. On January 30, 2006, he left the party. On June 26, 2006, he announced that he will not be running for a second term in an interview on TV Slovenia.

In 2006, Drnovšek founded the Movement for Justice and Development and became its first president. It is not a political movement, although some people think it will eventually turn into a political party. Its aim is to "raise human consciousness and make the world a better place".

Drnovšek has been suffering from cancer for a long time. He had a cancerous kidney removed in 1999 and recently stated that doctors discovered other cancerous growths in 2001. He later abandoned conventional treatment for his disease ^[1] and changed his lifestyle, moving from Ljubljana to a remote village (Zaplana). Among other things, he became a vegan ^[2].

In December 2006, Drnovšek defended the Strojans, a Roma family evicted from the city where they dwelled. He was videotaped arguing with the locals: "We can't leave them out in the cold. We have to help them like people. Are you people? Your Christianity is nothing – it's just a word."

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Preceded by Milan Kučan	President of Slovenia December 22, 2002 – present	Incumbent

Preceded by Raif Dizdarević	Head of State of Yugoslavia Janez Drnovšek 1989–1990	Succeeded by Borisav Jović

Presidents of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
Ribar \| Broz \| Koliševski \| Mijatović \| Kraigher \| Stambolić \| Špiljak \| Đuranović \| Vlajković \| Hasani \| Mojsov \| Dizdarević \| Drnovšek \| Jović \| Mesić