Чедомир Йованович: Сербия саяхаты мен саяси жолы

Serbian politician and businessman

Čedomir "Čeda" Jovanović (, ; born 13 April 1971) is a Serbian politician and businessman. During the presidency of Slobodan Milošević in Yugoslavia, Jovanović became one of the student leaders of the 1996–1997 protests in Serbia at the age of 25. Jovanović along with fellow student Čedomir Antić were one of the founding members of the "Student Political Club", abbreviated in Serbian as SPK, which successfully organised a massive boycott of the 1997 Serbian general election. In February 1998, the bulk of the SPK membership along with Jovanović himself joined the Democratic Party. After the overthrow of Slobodan Milošević, Jovanović was selected by the Democratic Opposition of Serbia to be one of its MPs, and he subsequently became the youngest parliamentary caucus leader in Serbian history, at the age of 29. In the post Milošević period, he was a target of several assassination attempts and attacks. On 6 February 2001, an explosive device destroyed Jovanović's automobile. On 31 March 2001, he was left unscathed from a minor shooting incident at the scene of Milošević's arrest, during which he was a negotiator. In July 2002, Minister of Interior Dušan Mihajlović commented that "Jovanović was on all the hit lists" of "centers of power". As a boy, he grew up in the New Belgrade neighbourhood and completed the Ivan Gundulić Primary School with average grades. In one of his memoirs, Čedomir Antić wrote that Jovanović was once proud of his military career in the Bosnian War, but that he experienced an ideological change about the war years later. Jovanović eventually started attending Belgrade's Arts University's Faculty of Dramatic Arts (FDU), enrolling in its dramaturgy program, from which he graduated in 1998 at the age of 27. General Perišić told Jovanović that both the military and students "are above politics", and claimed to sympathise with the protest movement. Antić eventually agreed, however the SPK virtually ceased to exist as a result, with many members dropping out when SPK joined the Democratic Party. Jovanović and Mihajlović asked Simatović about the Ibar Highway assassination attempt on Vuk Drašković, the murder of Slavko Ćuruvija and the disappearance of Ivan Stambolić. In the same interview, Jovanović admitted that he feared more that Marija would get shot by the bodyguards than he did for his own life during the Milošević villa standoff. The electorate did not exactly see it that way and Jovanović's popularity dropped drastically as a result of this episode. Realizing this, the Democratic Party brass marginalised his role within its ranks before the parliamentary elections in December 2003 by not even entering his name on the party's electoral ballot. He did not complain, at least not publicly, opting to instead focus on the coming party congress in February 2004 that was to determine its new post Đinđić leadership. Jovanović was hoping to get a seat on the main board, but did not receive enough delegate support.

Dissatisfied with the party's new direction under the leadership of Boris Tadić, Jovanović criticised him publicly, most notably for his policy of political cohabitation with Prime Minister Vojislav Koštunica's government. Being a fierce Koštunica opponent, Jovanović felt that the Democratic Party should actively seek ways to bring down his government, especially when Boris Tadić was elected President of the Republic in June 2004. A couple of months after Tadić's inauguration, Jovanović wrote his party colleague an open public letter on a per tu basis criticising his political choices. Tadić never even acknowledged the letter publicly until he was directly asked about it during an interview on a weekly political TV talk show Utisak nedelje. He admitted that he had not really bothered to read it and added: "When someone writes a letter, supposedly to me, by first making sure it gets published in the papers, then that's really not a letter but a political bid". After his unsuccessful attempt to take over the DS leadership, Jovanović formed the "Liberal Democratic faction" within DS knowingly breaching the party statute. The act was obviously not welcomed by the leadership and he was eventually expelled on 3 December 2004. In the following period, Jovanović's political activity became distinctly more direct. He gave bombastic interviews and in his strongly worded press releases frequently went after PM Koštunica's government officials, Koštunica himself, and the Serbian security apparatus. He repeatedly criticised the Serbian Orthodox Church, calling it dishonest, backward and dogmatic, protesting what he sees to be its interference in the country's politics. Parallel to all of this Jovanović also founded a non governmental organisation called Center for Modern Politics (Centar za modernu politiku, CMP), but its activities were sporadic at best and it eventually folded. In July 2005, Jovanović published a book, Moj sukob sa prošlošću ("My Confrontation with the Past"). He came out in favour of Kosovo's independence, thus becoming the only notable Serbian political party leader to do so and because of that he gained sympathies from many Albanians.

On 5 November 2005, Jovanović and his supporters founded the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to much fanfare, and Jovanović was elected as its first president at the age of 34. Soon after, in December, he was the subject of a lengthy, very affirmative piece penned by Zoran Ćirjaković in the influential American weekly magazine Newsweek which, among other things, Jovanović used to further reiterate his stance on Kosovo and to declare his opinion that Bosnian Serb ties with Belgrade should effectively be severed. The first parliamentary elections Jovanović led his party in were held in January 2007. LDP's electoral list also featured several minority parties and Nenad Čanak's League of Vojvodina's Socialdemocrats (LSV). With an aggressive "Od nas zavisi" campaign, he was hoping to ensure enough votes for LDP to become a significant factor when it comes to forming the ruling coalition. However, LDP received about 5 6% of the total vote, barely clearing the 5% threshold required to enter the parliament.

In November 2007, in anticipation of presidential election, Jovanović opened a public row with powerful and politically connected Serbian tycoon Miroslav Mišković. On Sunday, 18 November 2007, while guest on Utisak nedelje, a weekly television political talk show, Jovanović claimed Mišković tried to get himself off the US entry visa blacklist, in exchange offering the American embassy in Belgrade to arrange prime minister Koštunica's cooperative and soft stance when it comes to the final status of the Serbian province of Kosovo whose independence America firmly supported. Amid the controversy that was immediately raised, the next day, Monday, Jovanović went on B92 radio's morning talk show Kažiprst, claiming that Mišković's liaison in this particular endeavour with the Americans was a well known Belgrade journalist, stopping short of revealing his name. However, later that day, talking in the Serbian parliament, Jovanović revealed the journalist to be Bratislav "Braca" Grubačić. Jovanović responded by filing an official complaint against Mišković in the Serbian police and publicly releasing a 4 page supposed internal Belgrade's American embassy document dated May 2007 in support of his earlier statements. The US embassy in Belgrade, at the time headed by ambassador Cameron Munter, denied Jovanović's claims as well as the authenticity of the document Jovanović forwarded to the Serbian media. Years later in 2011, a leaked diplomatic cable written by Munter from the Belgrade embassy claimed that Jovanović used a forged document in his accusations against Mišković.

Jovanović was a candidate in the 2008 Serbian Presidential elections held in January. He was running under the slogan "Život je zakon!" (eng. "Life Rules") while emphasising his determination to bring down every person inside or outside the Serbian government who "oppose the idea of providing a better life for the people of Serbia". Once again, Jovanović has directly accused Miroslav Mišković, a Serbian tycoon, of being one of the most responsible persons for the underdevelopment of Serbia in the recent years. He finished fifth with 5.34% of the total votes, well behind Boris Tadić and Tomislav Nikolić who went into the second round runoff. Ahead of the second round vote, despite expectations from some circles, Jovanović decided not to throw his support behind Tadić, opting instead to stay neutral. Tadić ended up winning the election regardless.

For the second presidential election in a row, Jovanović was a candidate in the 2012 presidential elections in Serbia, held in May that year. His campaign included an internationally televised debate with President of Republika Srpska Milorad Dodik. In the debate, Jovanović defended a previous statement he made saying that "Republika Srpska was founded on genocide and ethnic cleansing", referring particularly to the Srebrenica massacre. The Algerian Ambassador to Serbia, Abdelkader Mesdoua, subsequently issued a statement to Vuk Jeremić, saying that Jovanović's statements were racist and that he should apologise in the National Assembly of Serbia.

His wife, Jelena, is from Nevesinje, Bosnia and Herzegovina She is the owner of "Agroposlovi", a Belgrade based business that operates a larger company named Fidelinka from Subotica, Serbia. Fidelinka offers flour products, pasta, breads, pastries, confectioneries, and starch. Jovanović is cited as a manager in Fidelinka. He is the father of four children. He has received death threats on several occasions because of his political commitment, in particular because of his support for Kosovo's independence. In 2001 he survived an assassination attempt when a bomb was activated in his car. He and his family have since lived under police protection.