In the Government formed yesterday, Prime Minister Duško Marković chose proven personnel as vice presidents, but he also entrusted some ministerial positions to people who already had experience in various departments.
From the government of Milo Đukanović, only Predrag Bošković "survived", who was "reassigned" from the position of Minister of Education to the Department of Defense, Zoran Pažin, who will also be the Vice-President of the Department of Justice, and Marija Vučinović, who will again be a Minister without portfolio, as well as the Vice-President for regional development Rafet Husović. Previously, Milutin Simović was also a minister, who after one term in the parliamentary benches returned to the position of Minister of Agriculture, and was also given the position of Vice President.
Minister of Defense Predrag Bošković: Personnel for all departments
Member of the Main Board of the DPS, Predrag Bošković (44), received defense as the fifth department in the executive branch, in which he "walked" through diplomacy, economy, work and education.
The master of economics went into politics instead of science, and from the position of president of the DPS Youth Council, he entered the parliamentary benches in 2001. From there, already in 2004, he advanced to the position of Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the former State Union with Serbia, where he was the closest associate of Vuk Drašković. He returned to Podgorica from Belgrade in 2005 and assumed the position of Minister of Economy.
At the will of the party, he returned to the parliamentary benches, but three years later, in 2008, he was elected as the president of the Board of Directors of the Pljevlja Coal Mine, as a representative of state capital, in a company in which Aco Đukanović is the third largest owner. It has been recorded that, after he took over the job at Rudnik, which at the time owed about 35 million euros, the company's management decided to buy him an expensive jeep. During his tenure, Rudnik improved its operations. Since 2006, he has been the head of ŽRK Budućnost, and in November he was elected vice-president of the European Handball Federation.
Milutin Simović, Deputy Prime Minister: Eternal agronomist
After training as an agronomist, Milutin Simović (55) returned to the profession and department where he spent 13 years. The new Minister of Agriculture is also the Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Development.
According to his official biography, Simović headed the Ministry of Agriculture from 1997 to 2010.
In the meantime, he progressed in the party hierarchy - to a member of the DPS Presidency.
While proving himself as a reliable party activist and absent from the government, Simović carried out party directives in the parliament. He was elected head of the DPS caucus in 2011, and DPS did not find a replacement for him even when he was elected vice-president of the Assembly at the end of 2014.
He did not shy away and was in the front lines when it was necessary to "defend" the party from political opponents, and he was remembered for his sharp controversy with SDP MP Draginja Vuksanović after the long-term coalition between the two parties was broken last year. He then told his colleague that the former teacher would have told her: "Go to the corner of Vuksanovićka, put your head against the wall and be ashamed until the end of the lesson."
Even the hunt for MANS director Vanja Ćalović, who was declaratively condemned by his party, did not touch Simović. He forbade his colleague Nada Drobnjak to condemn the attempt to compromise the influential NGO activist with other MPs.
Simović could also find himself in a nepotistic scheme because his wife, Ljiljana Simović, is employed in the executive branch as director of the Directorate for European Integration, Programming and Implementation of EU Funds.
Zoran Pažin, Deputy Prime Minister: Lightning to the top
Zoran Pažin's (50) lightning-fast judicial advancement continued in the government, where after 20 months spent at the head of the Ministry of Justice, he advanced to the position of vice president for the political system, internal and external policy. He started his judicial career in 2000 in the Basic Court in Podgorica, two years later he became the president of its civil department and deputy president of the court. In that period, in 2002, he attracted the attention of the public after he awarded Milo Đukanović 15,5 thousand euros for defamation and reputational damage in a lawsuit against "Dana", because that newspaper had published articles about the tobacco mafia from Zagreb's "Nacional". After four years of judicial experience, in competition with colleagues with decades of experience, he was elected president of that court.
Pažin then became the legal representative of Montenegro before the court in Strasbourg, from where, in the middle of his second mandate, in March 2015, he was elected as the Minister of Justice and, on that basis, as a member of the Judicial Council.
Pažin is the first president of the court who initiated the dismissal of two judges, who raised the issue of his expertise in public. Until now, he was not a member of any party.
Rafet Husović, Deputy Prime Minister: Mathematician from Rožaj
The leader of the Bosniak Party, Rafet Husović, remained the Deputy Prime Minister for Regional Development.
Husović is a mathematician by profession, he graduated from university in Pristina. Before the Bosniak Party, he was a member of the Party of Democratic Action - SDA, from its foundation until, as stated in his biography, "its breaking and fragmentation by the state security, into several smaller Bosniak parties".
He was a member of the Main Board of the International Democratic Union (IDU), the Bosniak National Council of Sandžak, the Bosniak National Council of the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro. He is one of the founders and also a member of the party Bosniak-Muslim alliance BMS, which united Bosniak parties in the current BS.
Before engaging in politics, Husović was a professor of mathematics at the "30. Septembar" high school in Rozaj, and the owner of an entrepreneurial company. In the parliamentary elections, he left the first place on the list to Ervin Ibrahimović.
He is currently in his third term at the head of the BS, and previously he was a minister without portfolio. Husović is married and the father of four children, three daughters and a son.
Marija Vučinović, minister without portfolio: Power at any cost
The president of the Croatian Civic Initiative, Marija Vučinović (58), was born in Rijeka, and has lived in Montenegro since her marriage to Gracija Vučinović from Lepetan in 1981. She worked at the Bijela shipyard and was the technical director of the Tivat Waterworks, from where she joined the government in 2012.
She is the creator of the maxim "HGI sees itself only in government", which she imposed as a political credo on the party from which she expelled all her opponents after the conflict. At the head of HGI since 2005, she significantly reduced the party's rating among Montenegrin Croats, but managed to establish extremely close relations with DPS, which compensated for the lack of original voter support. This was clearly seen in the last elections, when HGI suddenly "improved its rating" in the north of Montenegro, where there are almost no Croats.
She has demonstrated her ruthlessness towards all those who oppose her on several occasions - from dealing with the founders and old management of HGI, through the "ethnic cleansing" of the party Radio Dux, from which she expelled all non-Croats, to using her political position to hire members of her closest family and friends. in state administration.
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