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Tomislav Nikolić (Template:Lang-sr) (born on February 15, 1952) is the Speaker of the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia and the deputy leader of the Serbian Radical Party. He is temporarily serving as the leader of the SRS because Vojislav Šešelj, the current leader, is on trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
Nikolić has published thirteen books as of 2005, mostly about politics. He and his wife Dragica have two sons, Radomir and Branislav.
Biography
Nikolić was born in Kragujevac. He trained as a construction technician, and worked at the construction company "Žegrap". He led the construction of the Belgrade-Bar railroad, as well as conducting other works in Majdanpek, Priboj, Prijepolje, Trebinje, Belgrade and elsewhere in the former Yugoslavia. He headed the investments department of the company "22. decembar" for twelve years. For two years he was the technical director of the communal works in Kragujevac.
In the 1990s he became a member of the People's Radical Party, which merged with the Serbian Chetnik Movement to form the Serbian Radical Party. Nikolić became a member of the new party on January 23 1991. He was soon elected the party's vice-president, and at the last three Congresses of Serbian Radicals he was elected deputy president.
Nikolić has been a deputy in the National Assembly of Serbia since 1991, the only one to be elected continuously since that year. During the rule of Slobodan Milošević and the Socialist Party of Serbia, he and Šešelj were sentenced to three months in prison which he served in Gnjilane.
However, in March 1998 the SRS went into coalition with the SPS, and Nikolić became the vice-president of the Government of Serbia, and by the end of 1999 the vice-president of the government of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
Nikolić ran in the Serbian presidential elections, 2000, finishing in third place behind Vojislav Koštunica and Slobodan Milošević.
Nikolić was also a presidential candidate in the Serbian presidential elections, 2004. In the first round he received 30.1% of the vote and Boris Tadić received 27.3%. In the second round held on June 27 Tadić won the election with 53.7% of the vote compared to Nikolić's 45.4%.
In 2005 the Serbian media published statements from Nataša Kandić claiming that during the Yugoslav wars Nikolić participated in a paramilitary group that executed several civilians in the Croatian village of Antin north of Vinkovci. Nikolić responded that, while he was indeed in Antin, not a single civilian died during that period. The Serbian Radical Party also sued Kandić for libel.
Nikolić has a significant following in Serbia, but has many critics, who regard him as a member of the far right, incapable of any compromise either with the West or with centrist parties. He is well known for his robustness, sometimes extending to open insult and swearing at political opponents, including from the dispatch box in parliament. On one occasion, when Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić was having to use a walking stick due to an injury he sustained to his leg while playing football, Nikolić warned during a speech to his supporters that Tito, the communist dictator of Yugoslavia, also had a problem with his leg shortly before his death. This statement achieved retrospective significance due to the assassination of Đinđić a few days later. To many that speech was more than just a coincidence. Nikolić said he was profoundly sorry and that he would not have spoken as he did if he had known what was about to happen. However, he refused to withdraw his statement that he wasn't sorry for the death of Slavko Ćuruvija, an opposition journalist shot by an unknown gunman during the Milošević regime.
Speaker of Parliament
Parliamentarians elected Nikolić the Speaker of Parliament on May 8, 2006. Nikolić defeated received Milena Milošević of the Democratic Party 142 to 99 out of 244 members of Parliament. The Democratic Party of Serbia endorsed him. On May 9 Nikolić met with Russian Ambassador Aleksandr Alekseyev and gave a speech to Parliament in which he advocated making Serbia part of a Belarus-Russia superstate, saying that together they would "stand up against the hegemony of America and the European Union."
References
- ^ Nikolic elected as Serbian parliament speaker People's Daily Online
- Sabrina Petra Ramet and Vjeran Pavlaković. Serbia Since 1989: politics and society under Milošević and after. Page 117.
- Serbian Parliament Speaker Calls For Closer Russia Ties Radio Free Europe
| Preceded byPredrag Marković | Speakers of the National Assembly of Serbia May 7 2007–Present |
Succeeded byincumbent |
