Andrej Bajuk
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Andrej Bajuk is a Slovenian politician and businessman.
Bajuk was born on 18 October 1943 in Ljubljana, Slovenia. His family left the country at the beginning of May 1945. They spent nearly three years in refugee camps in Lower and Upper Austria, and then left for Argentina, where they settled in Mendoza. Bajuk grew up, studied and started a family in Mendoza.
Bajuk received his first degree in economics in Mendoza from the Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. In a two-year international study programme organised by the University of Chicago he received his first Master's degree, receiving the second jointly with his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. He returned to Mendoza, where he taught as a professor at the university. He soon left for Washington D.C., working for the World Bank for a year. He then switched to the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), where he stayed for a number of years. He held a range of positions at the IDB, from economist in charge of analysing social projects to adviser to the executive vice-president. For his last six years in Washington he was in charge of the office of the Presidency of the bank and a member of the board of executive directors of the bank. From September 1994 he was IDB representative for Europe in Paris.
Since the second half of 1999 Bajuk has spent a considerable amount of time in Slovenia and, following the coalition agreement between the Slovenian Christian Democrats (SKD) and the Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS), assumed leadership of the expert council developing the coalition's alternative government programme. At the unification congress of the SKD and Slovene People's Party (SLS) he was elected deputy president of the unified party.
On 3 May 2000, Andrej Bajuk became the Prime Minister and led the government until 16 November 2000. In July 2000, the SLS+SKD - contrary to previously agreed policy and government stance - voted in favour of a parliamentary motion that would enact proportional representation electoral system. This led Prime Minister Bajuk to quit the SLS+SKD party and in August 2000, he and his supporters, founded a new political party called New Slovenia - Christian People's Party (Nova Slovenija - Krščanska ljudska stranka, NSi).
He speaks English, French and Spanish.
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