Zoran Janković | |
---|---|
Mayor of Ljubljana | |
Assumed office 11 April 2012 |
|
Deputy | Aleš Čerin |
Preceded by | Aleš Čerin (Acting) |
In office 17 November 2006 – 21 December 2011 |
|
Deputy | Aleš Čerin |
Preceded by | Danica Simšič |
Succeeded by | Aleš Čerin (Acting) |
Personal details | |
Born |
Saraorci, PR Serbia, FPR Yugoslavia |
1 January 1953
Political party |
Independent (Before 2006) Zoran Janković List (2006–2011) Positive Slovenia (2011–present) |
Spouse(s) | Mija Janković |
Children | Jure Damjan |
Alma mater | University of Ljubljana |
Zoran Janković (Serbian Cyrillic: Зоран Јанковић, pronounced [zǒran jǎːŋkoʋit͡ɕ]; born 1 January 1953) is a Slovene businessman and politician. He came to prominence in 1997 as the president of the Slovenian retail company Mercator. From October 2006 to December 2011, he was mayor of Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia. In October 2011, he established the Positive Slovenia party, which won the plurality of votes at the early Slovenian 2011 parliamentary election. His function as a mayor ceased on 21 December 2011, when he became a deputy in the National Assembly. After he failed to be elected as the prime minister in the National Assembly, he was re-elected as the mayor of Ljubljana and retook the position on 11 April 2012. He is the first mayor of Ljubljana to have served two terms since the end of World War II.
Janković was born in the village of Saraorci near the town of Smederevo in Serbia, then part of the Yugoslavia, to a Serb father and a Slovene mother. His parents moved to Slovenia for a better life, and left their son in poverty with his grandmother in Saraorci. In this time, his sister Jagoda was born. After finishing fourth grade of the primary school in 1964, he moved to Ljubljana so that he could learn English instead of Russian. He didn't know Slovenian at the time. In Ljubljana, he attended the Valentin Vodnik Primary School in Šiška and the Kette and Murn Primary School in Kodeljevo in the last grade. Then, he attended the Poljane High School, where he learned French. There, he met his wife Mija, the cousin of Gregor Virant, who later became an influential politician. In 1971, he entered the Faculty of Economics in Ljubljana, from which he graduated in 1980 with the thesis "Agricultural Goods Wheelers-Dealers in Our Country" (Slovene: Prekupčevalci s kmetijskim blagom pri nas). During study, he built a house with the money he earned working for the AMD Moste (Auto-Moto Society Moste), with bookkeeping and with cargo transportation. In 1974, he married Mija and later had two children with her, Damijan and Jure.