Dragan Čović


Dragan Čović is a Bosnian Croat politician and leader of the Croatian Democratic Union of Bosnia and Herzegovina party since 2005. He is the current member of the House of Peoples.

Biography

Education and managerial career

Čović attended elementary school and technical high school of mechanical engineering in Mostar till 1975. He graduated as mechanical engineer from the Faculty of Engineering at University Džemal Bijedić of Mostar in 1979.
In 1980, he joined the aircract manufacturer SOKO in Mostar, where he worked in technology and control sections. From 1986 to 1992 he was a manager at SOKO, including as director of business unit, director of production and vice president for industrialization. From 1992 till 1998, he took over as director-general of SOKO.
Čović gained a master's degree in 1989 at the Faculty of Engineering in Mostar, and, from 1989–91, he attended studies of management at the Faculty of Economy at the University of Sarajevo. He obtained a PhD from the University of Mostar in 1996.
From 1994–96 he taught Economics and Organization of Production as a senior assistant at the Faculty of Engineering in Mostar, after which he was named assistant professor and taught Development of Production Systems. Four years later, he became an associate professor and in 2004 he was a full professor of the University of Mostar. He worked at the Faculty of Economy in Mostar, and also in regular and postgraduate studies. In 2007, he became visiting professor at the University of Mostar's Faculty of Philosophy, and in 2014 member of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts of BiH.

Political career

In 1994, Čović joined the Croatian Democratic Union of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Two years later, he became a member of the cantonal committee of HDZ. In 1997, he became the president of the city committee of HDZ in Mostar.
In 1998, he became vice president of HDZ and in 2005 he was elected President. From 1998–2001, he served as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance in the Government of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. From 10 January 2001 until 12 March 2001, he served as Acting Prime Minister of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
At the general election in 2002 Čović was elected as member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina with 114,606 votes. He was a Presidency member until 29 March 2005, when he was removed from office by the High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Paddy Ashdown, for abuse of power and position. Since 2005 he is President of HDZ BiH.
In 2008, Čović joined the Prud process as one of the three main negotiators. When the Prud process failed over issues of constitutional reform and territorial restructuring, RS leader Milorad Dodik and his party SNSD became close partners to HDZ BiH.
In May 2011 he became a member of the House of Peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina and in February 2012 he was named Chairman of the House of Peoples. In 2011, he was also appointed President of the Croatian National Congress of BiH.
During the numerous failed negotiations to implement the 2009 ECtHR Sejdić-Finci judgment, Čović has been singled out by analysts as blocking a solution, maintaining that Bosnian Croats must be able to elect their own member in the BiH Presidency.
At the October 2014 election Čović was re-elected as Croat member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina. He chaired the Presidency between November 2015 and March 2016, during which period on 15 February 2016, Bosnia and Herzegovina submitted its EU membership application. Čović held again the chair of the Presidency in July-November 2017.
At the October 2018 elections, Čović lost his bid for re-election as Croat member of the Bosnian Presidency to Željko Komšić. He and the HDZ BiH accused Komšić to garner support from Bosniak rather than Croat voters and thus not to be a legitimate representative of Bosnian Croats in the country's presidency.
On 19 July 2020, it was confirmed that Čović tested positive for COVID-19, amid its pandemic in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Investigations and indictments

In November 2006 Čović was sentenced to five years in prison for exempting the Ivanković-Lijanović company of paying taxes on meat imports. The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, on appeal, annulled the sentence and acquitted him for lack of jurisdiction.
In 2009, Čović was accused of spending public funds to buy private homes for certain people. In April 2010, he was acquitted.
On 14 May 2010, a third indictment for Čović and six other persons was confirmed by the Court of the Herzegovina-Neretva Canton, this time for abuse of power and position. He and other committee members of the Croatian Post and Telecom were accused of transferring a debt of nearly 4,7 million Convertible Marks from the non-existing Ministry of Defence of the Croatian Defence Council to three private companies.
By receiving the debt, those three companies became owners of shares in Eronet, the most profitable telecommunicational section of the HPT. At the time, Čović was Federal Minister of Finance and president of the Steering Committee of the HPT. The Court of the HNC asked that this case be brought in front of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but the FBiH Supreme Court ruled the case had to be tried in Mostar. In May 2012, Čović was acquitted.