Vuk Draskovic
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Template:Titlelacksdiacritics Vuk Drašković (Вук Драшковић) (November 29, 1946) is a Serbian politician who is presently the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Serbia and Montenegro.
He was born in village Medja (Међа/Međa) near Mali Idjos in the Serbian province of Vojvodina and graduated from the Law Faculty at the University of Belgrade in 1968. From 1969 to 1980 he worked as a journalist in the Yugoslav news agency Tanjug.
He wrote five novels in the 1970s and the 1980s: The Judge, Knife, Prayer, Russian Consul and The Night of the General. He was also a member of the Communist Party.
In 1990, Drašković founded the Serbian Renewal Movement party (Srpski Pokret Obnove, SPO), a Serb pro-monarchist party. They participated in the first post-communist democratic elections but did not achieve particular success. In 1993 he was detained and harassed by the police after organizing public demonstrations against Slobodan Milošević.
In 1996 SPO formed the opposition alliance Zajedno ("Together") with the Democratic Party of Zoran Đinđić and the Civic Alliance of Serbia under Vesna Pešić, which achieved some success in the local elections of November same year. The coalition soon split up and Drašković's SPO participated on its own at the September 1997 parliamentary election.
In January 1998, the SPO formed a coalition with Milošević's Socialist Party of Serbia and in early 1999, Drašković became the deputy prime minister of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. During the Kosovo War he split with Milošević on April 28, 1999 and SPO returned to the opposition.
Unsuccessful attempts of assassination of Drašković took place in 1999 and in 2000. Four of his close associates were murdered. As of 2005, Milošević and Milorad Ulemek are on trial for this murder, together with the murder-trial of Đinđić and Ivan Stambolić.
In the 24 September, 2000 presidential elections of FR Yugoslavia, Drašković achieved little success and the SPO also wasn't successful in the subsequent parliamentary election where the Democratic Opposition of Serbia won.
In the Serbian parliamentary election, 2003, Drašković's SPO again achieved limited success, but became the party that brought critical votes in the new Parliament for the democratic coalition (DSS, G17 Plus) over the radicals (SRS). Drašković received the rather beneficiary office of the foreign minister.
He speaks English and Russian.
Quotation
“Don't mix grandmothers and frogs” Interview with BBC, 1999.fr:Vuk Drašković