Kolinda Grabar Kitarović

Early life and education

Kolinda Grabar was born on 29 April 1968 in Rijeka to Dubravka and Branko Grabar. She was raised mainly in her parents' village of Lopača, just north of Rijeka, where the family owned a butcher shop and a ranch.

As a high school student, she entered a student exchange program and at 17 moved to Los Alamos, New Mexico, subsequently graduating from Los Alamos High School in 1986.

Upon her return to Yugoslavia, she enrolled at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, graduating in 1992 with a Bachelor of Arts in English and Spanish languages and literature. From 1995 to 1996, she attended the Diploma Course at the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna. In 2000 she obtained a master's degree in international relations from the Faculty of Political Science at the University of Zagreb.

In 2002–2003 she attended George Washington University as a Fulbright scholar. She also received a Luksic Fellowship for the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and was a visiting scholar at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.

In December 2015, Grabar-Kitarović began her doctoral studies in international relations on the Zagreb Faculty of Political Science.

Career

In 1992, Grabar-Kitarović became an advisor to the international cooperation department of the Ministry of Science and Technology. In 1993 she joined the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ). In the same year she transferred to the Foreign ministry, becoming an advisor. She became the head of the North American department of the Foreign ministry in 1995 and held that post until 1997. That year she began to work at the Croatian embassy in Canada as a diplomatic councilor until October 1998, and then as a minister-councilor.

When Social Democratic Party of Croatia (SDP) came to power after 2000 elections Tonino Picula became Minister of Foreign Affairs. After taking office he immediately started to remove politically appointed staff that were appointed by the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) to high-ranking diplomatic positions. Grabar-Kitarović was ordered to return to Croatia from Canada within next six weeks, which she at first refused to do because she was pregnant and had already made plans to give birth in Canada, however she eventually decided to return after being strongly pressured by the ministry to do so. During her stay in hospital she applied for Fulbright scholarship for studying international relations and security policy. She eventually moved to the United States and enrolled at the George Washington University. After graduating, she returned to Croatia and continued to live in Rijeka.

Two years later, she was elected to the Croatian Parliament from the seventh electoral district as a member of the Croatian Democratic Union in the 2003 parliamentary elections. With the formation of the new government led by HDZ chairman Ivo Sanader she became Minister of European integration, which entailed the commencement of negotiations regarding Croatia's ascension to the European Union.

After the separate Ministries of Foreign Affairs and European Integration were merged in 2005 Grabar-Kitarović was nominated to become the head of the new ministry as Minister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration. She was confirmed by the Parliament and sworn in on 17 February 2005. Her main task as foreign minister was to guide Croatia into the European Union and NATO. On 18 January 2005 she became Head of the State Delegation for Negotiations on the Croatian accession to the European Union. Furthermore, on 28 November 2005 she was elected by the international community to preside over the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention's Sixth Meeting of the States Parties, or Ottawa Treaty, held that year in Zagreb. Grabar-Kitarović was the first woman to be named President of the Ottawa Treaty.

Following the HDZ's victory in the 2007 parliamentary election and the subsequent formation of the Second Sanader Cabinet, she was reappointed as Foreign Minister, but was suddenly removed from the position on 12 January 2008. The exact reason for her removal is not known, but it is believed that she often got into conflicts with the extremely authoritative Prime Minister and HDZ chairman, Ivo Sander. Gordan Jandroković succeeded her.

On 8 March 2008, with President Stjepan Mesić's help, she became the Croatian Ambassador to the United States, where she replaced Neven Jurica. She served as Ambassador until 4 July 2011. In 2010 a scandal broke out at the Croatian Embassy in Washington, DC when it was revealed that Grabar-Kitarović's husband, Jakov, had been using an official embassy car for private purposes. Namely, a member of the embassy's security staff had followed and filmed Mr. Kitarović for days and footage of the events was posted on YouTube, but were later removed. As a result, Foreign minister Gordan Jandroković launched an internal investigation because of Jakov Kitarović's unauthorized usage of the official car, as the unauthorized filming of members of the diplomatic staff and their families by a member of the embassy's security staff. The investigation concluded that Grabar-Kitarović herself was, despite having an embassy-owned Cadillac DTS with a driver available to her 24 hours a day, using another embassy car, a Toyota Sienna, for private purposes. Grabar-Kitarović claimed that her duties continue for 24 hours a day and that she cannot separate her working life from her private life. She later paid for all expenses that occurred due to her husband's unauthorized using of the car, while the member of embassy's security staff who had filmed her family was fired.

In 2011 Grabar-Kitarović submitted her resignation as ambassador and on 4 June 2011 became Assistant Secretary General of NATO for Public Diplomacy. She was criticized because of the way she left her position in Washington, DC. Namely, Grabar-Kitarović had failed to inform Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor in advance of her plans to resign as ambassador, so Kosor was not prepared to appoint a replacement on time. As a result, the position of Croatian Ambassador to the United States was vacant for almost nine months after Grabar-Kitarović's departure. Grabar-Kitarović, however, said that she did in fact inform the newly elected President of Croatia, Social Democrat Ivo Josipović, of her plans and Josipović subsequently confirmed these claims in December 2014, stating that he even gave his personal contribution to her appointment to NATO by writing Grabar-Kitarović a written opinion that she needed from someone reputable. Grabar-Kitarović also said that she had on two occasions offered herself to Prime Minister Kosor and also to return to Croatia, so as to make herself available to the HDZ for the 2011 parliamentary elections. Furthermore, stating that Kosor had just ignored her offers and that it is for this reason that Grabar-Kitarović decided not to communicate with the Prime Minister any further.

When Grabar-Kitarović saw an ad for a job at NATO in The Economist magazine, she thought that the job was well-suited for her, but in the end decided not apply for it. It was only when NATO failed to chose a candidate for the job in two rounds that she finally applied, and in the third round she received the position. During her term at NATO she often visited Afghanistan and the Croatian soldiers that are deployed there as part of a peacekeeping mission. Her task was to take care of the "communication strategy" and to "bring NATO closer to the common people". Her colleagues at NATO often referred to her as SWAMBO (She Who Must Be Obeyed). Grabar-Kitarović was the first woman ever to be appointed to the position. She served as Assistant Secretary General in NATO until 2 October 2014.

She was invited to join the Trilateral Commission and became an official member in April 2013.

Presidential candidacy

Croatian daily newspaper Jutarnji List published an article in September 2012 stating that Grabar-Kitarović was being considered as a possible candidate for the 2014–15 Croatian presidential election by the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ). It was confirmed in mid-2014 that she was to become the party's official candidate, going up against incumbent Ivo Josipović and newcomers Ivan Vilibor Sinčić and Milan Kujundžić. In the first round of election in December 2014 Grabar-Kitarovic won 37.2% of the vote, second to Josipović who received 38.5%, while Sinčić and Kujundžić won 16.4% and 6.3% of the vote respectively. Since no candidate received more than 50% of the vote, a run-off election was scheduled between the top two candidates, Josipović and Grabar-Kitarović, in two weeks time.

The run-off took place on 11 January 2015, with Grabar-Kitarović winning 50.7% of the vote. She thereby became Croatia's first female post-independence head of state and the country's first conservative president in 15 years. She was ceremonially sworn into office on 15 February, and assumed office officially at midnight on 19 February 2015.

Upon election, Grabar-Kitarović became the first woman in Europe to defeat an incumbent president running for reelection, as well as the second woman in the world to do so, after Violetta Chamorro of Nicaragua in 1990. She is also the first candidate of any gender to defeat an incumbent Croatian president. In addition, Grabar-Kitarović is the only presidential candidate to date to have won a Croatian presidential election without having won the most votes in the first round of elections, as she lost it by 1.24% or 21.000 votes. Furthermore, the 1.114 million votes she received in the second round is the lowest number of votes for any winning candidate in a presidential election in Croatia and the 1.48% victory margin against Josipović is the smallest in any such election to date.

Presidency (2015–present)

Less than nine months into Grabar-Kitarović's term the european migrant crisis began to escalate with large numbers of migrants entering Greece and Macedonia and crossing from Serbia into Hungary, with the latter beginning the construction of a fence on its southern border as a result. In September 2015, after Hungary constructed a fence and closed its border with Serbia, the flow of migrants was redirected towards Croatia, causing over 21,000 migrants to enter the country by 19 September, with the number rising to 39,000 immigrants, while 32,000 migrants exited Croatia, leaving through Slovenia and Hungary. She appointed Andrija Hebrang her commissioner for the refugee crisis.

With the parliament expected to dissolve by 25 September, Grabar-Kitarović called parliamentary elections for 8 November 2015. They proved inconclusive and negotiations on forming a government lasted for 76 days. Grabar-Kitarović had previously announced on 22 December 2015, if there were no agreement on a possible Prime Minister-designate in the next 24 hours, she would call for an early election and name a non-partisan transitional government (which would have reportedly been headed by Damir Vanđelić), thereby putting intense pressure on the political parties involved in the negotiations regarding the formation of the new government, to find a solution. The crisis finally ended on 23 December 2015 when Grabar-Kitarović gave the 30-day mandate to form a government to the non-partisan Croatian-Canadian businessman Tihomir Orešković, who had been selected by HDZ and MOST only hours before the expiration of the President's delegated time frame for the naming of a Prime-Minister-designate.

On August 24, 2015, Grabar-Kitarović was, as Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief, presented with a petition for the introduction of a Croatian fascist Ustaše movement salute Za dom spremni to the official use in the Croatian Armed Forces. She immediately rejected petition calling it "frivolous, unacceptable and provocative".

On April 11, 2016, after meeting with Nicolas Dean, the special envoy for Holocaust of the US State Department, Grabar-Kitarović stated that the "Independent State of Croatia (NDH) was least independent and was least protecting the interests of the Croatian people". Adding that the "Ustaše regime was criminal regime", that "anti-fascism is in the foundation of the Croatian Constitution" and that the "modern Croatian state has grown on the foundations of the Croatian War of Independence."

In May 2016, Grabar-Kitarović visited Tehran on the invitation of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Rouhani called on Croatia to be the gateway to Iran’s ties with Europe. The two presidents reaffirmed the traditionally good relations between their countries and signed an agreement on economic cooperation.

According to poll conducted in May 2016 for Nova TV, 47% of people do not approve her work, while 45% do. In March 2016, her work was approved by 52% of people. Nevertheless, she is still the most popular politician with 57%, while the Prime Minister Tihomir Orešković is the second with 55%.

In October 2016, Grabar-Kitarović made an official visit to Baku, Azerbaijan where she expressed her support for the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, stating that the solution to this conflict "must be peaceful and political".

LGBT issues

While against same-sex marriage, Grabar-Kitarović expressed her clear support for the Life Partnership Act, which enabled same-sex couples to enjoy rights equal to heterosexual married couples, praising it as good compromise. She also included sexual minorities in her inaugural speech, and said she would support her son if he was gay.

Abortion

In regard to abortion, Grabar-Kitarović is pro-choice. She considers that the prohibition of abortion wouldn't solve anything, and stresses that attention should be given to education in order to prevent unwanted pregnancies. Grabar-Kitarović criticized the hard process of adoption and stated that "the whole system has to be reformed so that through education and social measures it enables every woman to give birth to a child, and that mother and the child could eventually be taken care of in an appropriate manner."

Personal life

Grabar-Kitarović has been married to Jakov Kitarović since 1996 and they have two children: Katarina (born on 23 April 2001) who is a professional figure skater and Croatia's national junior champion and Luka (born c. 2003).

Grabar-Kitarović is a devout Roman Catholic and declares her adherence to traditional Christian values.

In an interview for Narodni radio Grabar-Kitarović stated that her favorite singer was Marko Perković, who has been accused of promoting extreme nationalism and of glorifying the Nazi-puppet state, the so-called Independent State of Croatia.

She speaks Croatian, English, Spanish and Portuguese fluently and has basic understanding of German, French and Italian.