HDZ made a decision: Dragan Čović candidate for member of the BiH Presidency

VITEZ, (Patria) - At today's session of the party presidency in Vitez, HDZ BiH made a unanimous decision on the candidacy of party president Dragan Čović for member of the BiH Presidency from the Croatian people.

Čović will try to win a second consecutive term in the BiH Presidency at the October elections.

In the last elections in 2014, Čović was elected to the BiH Presidency, winning 52 percent of the votes among candidates from the Croatian people.

The president of HDZ BiH, Dragan Čović, was born in 1956 in Mostar, where he lives with his wife Bernadica, with whom he has two daughters, Sanja and Daniela. He graduated in 1979, earned his master's degree in 1989 at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering in Mostar, and received his doctorate at the University of Mostar in 1996. Čović has been a member of HDZ BiH since 1994.

From 1980 until 1998, Čović worked at the Mostar company SOKO, first in technology and control, and later in management, and from 1992 to 1998 he was also the general director of this company.

He worked as a senior assistant at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering in Mostar, and later became an associate professor, then a full professor at the University of Mostar, where he also teaches at the Faculty of Economics and the Faculty of Philosophy.

From 1998 to 2001, he was Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance in the Government of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH). He was elected as a member of the BiH Presidency in 2002, but was removed from that position by High Representative Paddy Ashdown in March 2005, after the Court of BiH confirmed an indictment against him for abuse of office.

In the general elections of 2010, Čović was elected to the House of Representatives of the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH, but instead took a delegate seat in the House of Peoples.

In the general elections of 2014, Čović was elected as the Croatian member of the BiH Presidency.