Dragan Covic

Member of the Presidency, Bosnia and Herzegovina

(Official Website, Croat Democratic Union Website, UN)

Dragan Covic became a member of Bosnia and Herzegovina's (BiH) tripartite presidency on 28 October 2002, following general elections in the country on 5 October 2002. Representing the country's Bosnian Croat community, Covic and the other two members of the collective presidency, Bosniak Sulejman Tihic and Bosnian Serb Mirko Sarovic, were elected by direct popular vote to a four-year term, replacing Jozo Krizanovic, Beriz Belkic and Zivko Radisic.

Covic, of the Croat Democratic Union, won his seat on the collective presidency with 61.5 per cent of the Bosnian Croat vote.

Covic was born on 20 August 1956 in Mostar. He holds a Masters' degree from the University of Mostar's machine engineering department and another from the Sarajevo University's department of economics, both obtained in 1989. Seven year later, Covic obtained his PhD from the University of Mostar.

Covic has worked for 21 years at the SOKO company in Mostar, taking senior managerial positions during most of his career there.

From 1998 to 2001 Covic served as deputy prime minister and minister of finance of the country's Muslim-Croat entity, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and later as a part-time lecturer at the machine engineering department in Mostar.

While on a visit with Sarovic and Tihic to the UN in December 2002, Covic said the tripartite presidency's priorities were to create a strong government and judiciary, as well as to carry out economic reform, stressing that BiH would be a force for stability in the region as its standards are modernised to the level of Europe and the wider world.

Covic is married and has two daughters.