Milan Kučan

Milan Kučan ( born January 14, 1941 in Križevci, Yugoslavia ) is a former Slovenian politician and statesman. From 1986 to 1990 he was Chairman of the Communist Party of Slovenia. He was from 1991 to 2002 the first President of the Republic of Slovenia, and is married to Štefka Kučan.

Milan Kučan was born in Križevci, a village in the region of Prekmurje. Slovenia belonged at that time to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. At the age of 17, he joined the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, where he already had a career while studying law at the University of Ljubljana. In 1964 he became the Chairman of the Party Committee of the University. In 1978 he was elected President of the Parliament of the Republic of Slovenia, 1986 Head of the Central Committee of the Slovenian Communist Party. In this role, he began to use both for the separation of party and state as well as for human rights and political pluralism. In April 1990, he was elected (after a constitutional reform ) of 58 % of Slovenian voters in the runoff election as President of the republic.

In December 1990, the Slovenes were in favor of the establishment of an independent republic was proclaimed in June of the following year. After the short war of independence and international recognition, he was elected in 1992 for the first President of Slovenia. In his re-election in 1997 he was able to unite 56% of the votes. His second term in office (another was not possible under the Constitution ) was 2002. Kucan 's successor in the presidency was Janez Drnovšek.

The person of Milan Kučan in Slovenia is not without controversy, due to its communist past. He is a member of the United List of Social Democrats ( ZLSD ).