Tomislav Nikolić

Tomislav Nikolić (Томислав Николић, ; born 15 February 1952) is a Serbian former politician who served as the president of Serbia from 2012 to 2017.

In 1971 he began working with the building construction company "Žegrap", and in 1978 he worked for the company "22 December" in Kragujevac as head of the Investment and Maintenance Department.

He was also the Technical Director of the Utility Services company in Kragujevac.

He and his wife Dragica (née Ninković) have two sons.

Nikolić began his political career as vice-president of the People's Radical Party.

Under his initiative, a fraction of the People's Radical Party merged with Vojislav Šešelj's Serbian National Renewal to form the Serbian Radical Party.

Šešelj was elected president of the new party and Nikolić as vice-president.

The party had been described by some as a Chetnik party oriented towards neo-fascism and striving for the territorial expansion of Serbia.

The Chetniks were a World War II movement in Yugoslavia led by Draža Mihailović, who was accused of collaboration with the occupying forces and war crimes.

Nikolić has been a deputy in the National Assembly of Serbia since 1991, the only one elected continuously since that year.

Under Slobodan Milošević and the Socialist Party of Serbia, he and Šešelj were sentenced to three months in prison which he served in Gnjilane.

In 1993, during the Bosnian War, Nikolić was proclaimed as Chetnik voivode by Šešelj in a ceremony on the Romanija Mountain.

He served as the Deputy Prime Minister of Serbia from 1998 to 1999 and Deputy Prime Minister of FR Yugoslavia in the coalition government from 1999 to 2000.

However, in March 1998, the Serbian Radical Party formed a coalition with the Socialist Party and he then became the vice-president of the Government of Serbia and, by the end of 1999, the vice-president of the government of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

Nikolić ran for President of Yugoslavia in the 2000 elections and placed third.

In 2000, he began the first of several runs for the presidency of Serbia.

In the FR Yugoslavia presidential election of 2000, he finished in third place behind Vojislav Koštunica and Slobodan Milošević.

Nikolić was the deputy leader of SRS from 2003, and he briefly served as the President of the National Assembly of Serbia in 2007.

He also ran four times for President of Serbia (in 2003, 2004, 2008, and 2012 elections).

In 2003, he garnered the most votes, but the election was cancelled due to low turnout, while in 2004 and 2008 he was placed second behind Boris Tadić.

He then ran in the 2003 Serbian presidential election, in which garnered the most votes in the first round (46.23%), ahead of Dragoljub Mićunović, but the results were invalidated due to a low turnout of only 38.8%.

On 23 February 2003, he became the party's deputy leader after Vojislav Šešelj went voluntarily to the ICTY.

During his leadership of the party, Nikolić favoured pushing the party towards focusing on more economic and social issues such as poverty and unemployment, rather than militant nationalism.

In a remark about Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić's injured leg, Nikolić said on 28 February 2003: "If anyone of you, in the following month or two, sees Zoran Đinđić somewhere, tell him that Tito also had a problem with a leg before his death".

Less than two weeks later Đinđić was assassinated in Belgrade.

Nikolić later apologised for his statement by saying that he would have never said that had he known what would happen.

In contrast to Đinđić, Nikolić repeatedly refused to apologise for stating "I don't regret that Slavko Ćuruvija was murdered".

Nikolić made yet another bid for the presidency in the 2004 presidential election.

In the first round, he received 30.1% of the vote and Boris Tadić received 27.3%.

In the second round held on 27 June, Nikolić lost to Tadić by 53.7% to 45.4%.

A former member of the far-right Serbian Radical Party (SRS), he disassociated himself from the party in 2008 and formed the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) which he led until 2012.

Born in Bajčetina, a village near Kragujevac, Nikolić was a long-time member of parliament for SRS.

In 2008, he resigned following a disagreement with party leader Vojislav Šešelj regarding Serbia's relations with the European Union, as Nikolić became in favour of Serbia's accession to the EU, a move that was staunchly opposed by Šešelj and his faction.

Nikolić formed SNS, which several SRS members joined.

In 2012, he won the run-off against Tadić to become President of Serbia.

Tomislav Nikolić was born in Kragujevac.

His father, Radomir, was a labourer, and his mother, Živadinka (née Đoković), was a housewife.

In his youth, he trained in athletics.

He completed secondary technical school in Kragujevac.

His first employment was as a cemetery supervisor.