She is a recipient of theFulbright Lifetime Achievement Award and a number of national and international awards, decorations, honorary doctorates and honorary citizenships.[6]
Grabar-Kitarović was a member of the conservativeCroatian Democratic Union party from 1993 to 2015[7] and was also one of three Croatian members of theTrilateral Commission,[8] but she was required to resign both positions upon taking office as president in 2015, as Croatian presidents are not permitted to hold other political positions or party membership while in office.[9] As president, she launched theThree Seas Initiative in 2015, together with Polish PresidentAndrzej Duda. In 2017,Forbes magazine listed her as the world's 39th most powerful woman.[10]
Kolinda Grabar was born on 29 April 1968 inRijeka,Croatia, then part ofYugoslavia, to Dubravka (b. 1947) and Branko Grabar (b. 1944).[13] She was raised mainly in her parents' village ofLopača, just north of Rijeka, where the family owned a butcher shop and a ranch.[13] As a high school student, she entered a student exchange program and at 17 moved toLos Alamos, New Mexico, subsequently graduating fromLos Alamos High School in 1986.[13][14]
In 1992, Grabar-Kitarović became an advisor to the international cooperation department of theMinistry of Science and Technology.[21] In 1993 she joined theCroatian Democratic Union (HDZ).[22] In the same year she transferred to the Foreign ministry, becoming an advisor.[21] She became the head of the North American department of the Foreign ministry in 1995 and held that post until 1997.[21] That year she began to work at theCroatian embassy in Canada as a diplomatic councilor until October 1998, and then as a minister-councilor.[23]
WhenSocial Democratic Party of Croatia (SDP) came to power after2000 electionsTonino Picula becameminister of Foreign Affairs. After taking office he immediately started to remove politically appointed staff that had been appointed by theCroatian 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 the hospital, she applied forFulbright scholarship for studying international relations and security policy. She eventually moved to the United States and enrolled atGeorge Washington University. After graduating, she returned to Croatia and continued to live inRijeka.
After the separate ministries of Foreign Affairs and European Integration were merged in 2005 Grabar-Kitarović was nominated to becomeminister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration. She was confirmed by theParliament and sworn in on 17 February 2005.[21] Her main task as foreign minister was to guide Croatia into theEuropean Union andNATO. On 18 January 2005, she became head of the State Delegation for Negotiations on theCroatian accession to the European Union.[5] 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, orOttawa Treaty, held that year in Zagreb.[25] Grabar-Kitarović was the first woman to be named president of the Ottawa Treaty.
Following theHDZ's victory in the2007 parliamentary election and the subsequent formation of theSecond 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.Gordan Jandroković succeeded her.[26]
On March 8, 2008, while the President of Croatia wasStjepan Mesić, she became the Croatian ambassador to the United States, where she replacedNeven Jurica. She served as ambassador until 4 July 2011.
On October 24, 2008, Grabar-Kitarović joined PresidentGeorge W. Bush andNATO Secretary General Jaap De Hoop Scheffer during the signing of NATO accession protocols in the East Room of theWhite House, in support of the nations ofAlbania andCroatia joining the NATO alliance.[27]
On May 6, 2010, the Croatian Embassy held a reception to celebrate women diplomats at the Croatian Embassy, which was attended by ambassadors to the U.S. fromCroatia,India,Liechtenstein,Trinidad and Tobago,Grenada,Senegal, andAntigua and Barbuda. The event was opened by Grabar-Kitarović by discussing the importance of taking small steps when it comes to mentoring.[28]
In 2010Croatian Embassy in Washington, DC discovered that Grabar-Kitarović's husband, Jakov, had been continually filmed while using an official embassy car. A member of the embassy's security staff had followed and filmed Kitarović, recording footage that was posted on YouTube. As a result, Foreign MinisterGordan Jandroković launched an internal investigation into the unauthorized filming of members of the diplomatic staff and their families by a member of the embassy's security staff. A member of the embassy's security staff who had filmed her family was fired.[29][30][31][32]
In 2011, Grabar-Kitarović was appointed Assistant Secretary General for Public Diplomacy atNATO, the first women to hold the position. 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).[33][34][35][36] She served until 2 October 2014.
During her presidential candidacy, Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović supported protesting war veterans, despite the fact that the group of protesters near the central tent blocked the traffic and brought bottles of gasoline on Savska street which they apparently threatened to ignite if the police refused to back off.[38] This support for war veterans, regardless threats of violence, was considered an unacceptable populist posture in order to gain the support of more of the right-leaning electorate in the upcoming presidential election.
Croatian daily newspaperJutarnji List published an article in September 2012 stating that Grabar-Kitarović was being considered as a possible candidate for the2014–15 Croatian presidential election by the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ).[39][40] It was confirmed in mid-2014 that she was to become the party's official candidate, going up against incumbentIvo Josipović and newcomers Ivan Vilibor Sinčić andMilan Kujundžić.[41] In the first round of election in December 2014 Grabar-Kitarović 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.[42] 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.
Grabar-Kitarović contested thepresidential election held in December 2014 and January 2015 as the only female candidate (out of four in total), finishing as the runner-up in the first round and thereafter proceeding to narrowly defeat incumbent presidentIvo Josipović in the second round (by a margin of 1.48%). Furthermore, as the country had previously also had a femaleprime minister,Jadranka Kosor, from 2009 until 2011, Grabar-Kitarović's election as president led to Croatia's inclusion in a small group ofparliamentary republics which have had both a female head of state and head of government.[43]
The run-off took place on 11 January 2015, with Grabar-Kitarović winning 50.7% of the vote.[44] She thereby became Croatia's firstfemale post-independence head of state and the country's first conservative president in 15 years.[45][Note 1] She was ceremonially sworn into office on 15 February,[46] and assumed office officially at midnight on 19 February 2015.[47]
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, afterVioleta Chamorro ofNicaragua in1990.[48] 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.
Less than nine months into Grabar-Kitarović's term theEuropean migrant crisis began to escalate with large numbers of migrants enteringGreece andMacedonia and crossing fromSerbia intoHungary, with the latter beginning the construction of a fence on its southern border as a result.[49] In September 2015, afterHungary constructed afence and closed its border withSerbia, the flow of migrants was redirected towardsCroatia, causing over 21,000 migrants to enter the country[50] by 19 September, with the number rising to 39,000 immigrants, while 32,000 migrants exited Croatia, leaving throughSlovenia andHungary.[51] She appointedAndrija Hebrang her commissioner for the refugee crisis.[52]
With the parliament expected to dissolve by 25 September,[53] Grabar-Kitarović calledparliamentary elections for 8 November 2015.[54] They proved inconclusive and negotiations on forming a government lasted for 76 days. Grabar-Kitarović had previously announced on 22 December 2015 that if there was 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 thenon-partisanCroatian-Canadian businessmanTihomir Orešković, who had been selected byHDZ andMOST only hours before the expiration of the President's delegated time frame for the naming of a Prime-Minister-designate.
On 24 August 2015, Grabar-Kitarović was, as Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief, presented with a petition for the introduction of a saluteZa dom spremni to the official use in theCroatian Armed Forces. She immediately rejected the petition, calling it "frivolous, unacceptable and provocative".[55] She called the salute a "Croatian historical greeting" that was "compromised and unacceptable". Following a backlash from some historians that the salute was not historical, Grabar-Kitarović admitted that she was wrong in that part of the statement.[56]
On 29 September 2015, at the initiative of Grabar-Kitarović the Atlantic Council co-hosted an informal high-level Adriatic-Baltic-Black Sea Leaders' Meeting inNew York City[57] which would later grow toThree Seas Initiative. The Initiative was officially formed in 2016 and held its first summit inDubrovnik,Croatia, on 25–26 August 2016.[58]
Grabar-Kitarović alongside U.S. PresidentDonald Trump and First LadyMelania Trump, 26 September 2018
On 11 April 2016, after meeting with Nicolas Dean, the special envoy for Holocaust of theUnited States Department of State, 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 theCroatian Constitution" and that the "modern Croatian state has grown on the foundations of theCroatian War of Independence."[59] In May 2016, Grabar-Kitarović visitedTehran on the invitation of Iranian PresidentHassan Rouhani. Rouhani called on Croatia to be the gateway to Iran's ties with Europe.[60][61] The two presidents reaffirmed the traditionallygood relations between their countries and signed an agreement on economic cooperation.[62]
Grabar-Kitarović expressed her condolences toSlobodan Praljak's family after he committed suicide inThe Hague where he was facing trial, calling him "a man who preferred to give his life, rather than to live, having been convicted of crimes he firmly believed he had not committed",[63] adding that "his act struck deeply at the heart of the Croatian people and left the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia with the weight of eternal doubt about the accomplishment of its tasks".[64]
In a speech held at the ceremony at which Grabar-Kitarović was named honorary citizen ofBuenos Aires in March 2018,[65] she stated that "after World War II, many Croats found a space of freedom in Argentina where they could testify to their patriotism and express their justified demands for the freedom of the Croatian people and homeland."[66] Following the end of the war and the establishment of acommunist regime, about 20,000 Croats, mostly political emigrants, moved to Argentina. As some among them were members of theUstaše movement,[67] her statement was interpreted by some, includingEfraim Zuroff of theSimon Wiesenthal Center, as support for them.[68][69] In a press release, Grabar-Kitarović rejected what she described as "malicious interpretations" of her statement.[67]
During the2018 FIFA World Cup, held in Russia, Grabar-Kitarović attended the quarter-final andfinal matches, wearing the colors of the national flag in support of thenational team, which ultimately ended up as tournament runners-up.[citation needed] According to the analytics company Mediatoolkit, she "emerged as her country’s star of the tournament" with "25% more focus on her in news stories about the final than any of the players on the pitch", as she "travelled to Russia at her own expense in economy class and often watched from the non-VIP stands".[70] Commenting on the appearance of Croatian singerMarko Perković at the celebration, Grabar-Kitarović stated that she “never heard” such songs nor “seen any evidence that they exist”, was "very fond" of some of his songs and that she did not see any evidence for the controversies associated to him, claiming his songs are "good for national unity". She condemned all totalitarian regimes, including nazism, fascism, and communism.[69][71]
Grabar-Kitarović was awardedFulbright Association's 2019 Lifetime Achievement Award for her "remarkable, contributions as a leader, diplomat, and public servant".[72]
In August 2019, during theVictory Day celebrations inKnin, Grabar-Kitarović informally hinted that she would be seeking reelection to a second and final 5-year term as president in theupcoming election,[73] and formally confirmed this several days later in an interview for the right-wing publicationHrvatski tjednik (Croatian Weekly).[74] Prime Minister and HDZ President Andrej Plenković announced that the HDZ would support her bid for a second term.[75] On 2 October 2019, Grabar-Kitarović formally announced her bid for re-election with the campaign slogan "Because I believe in Croatia".[76] She thus proceeded to face 10 other candidates in the first round on 22 December 2019, with her main challengers being formerSocial DemocraticPrime MinisterZoran Milanović and conservative folk musician and formerMember of ParliamentMiroslav Škoro. Zoran Milanović won a plurality of 29.55% of the vote, ahead of Grabar-Kitarović, who received 26.65% of the vote,[77] while Miroslav Škoro attracted the support of 24.45% of voters.[77] Therefore, this election marked the first time in Croatian history that the incumbent president did not receive the highest number of votes in the first round. Grabar-Kitarović only managed to defeat Škoro by a margin of 2.2% of the vote, and therefore narrowly proceeded to the run-off against Milanović. Also, Grabar-Kitarović attained both the lowest number of votes (507,626) and the lowest percentage of votes of any sitting Croatian president competing in either of the two rounds of elections. Furthermore, Milanović attained both the lowest number of votes (562,779) and the lowest percentage of the vote of any winning candidate in the first round of a presidential election.[78]
A run-off election took place between Milanović and Grabar-Kitarović on 5 January 2020. She was eventually defeated in her bid for reelection by Milanović, who won 52.66% of the vote, while Grabar-Kitarović, who had tried to unite a fractured right–wing, garnered 47.3%. The turnout was about 55%. She is thus the second President of Croatia to not win a second term, after her predecessorIvo Josipović. Grabar-Kitarović left the presidency on 18 February 2020, when she handed over the office to Milanović, who thus became the 5th President of Croatia since its independence.
Grabar-Kitarović with German ChancellorAngela Merkel at anEPP Summit inZagreb, 20 November 2019
Grabar-Kitarović declared herself a "modern conservative" during the 2014–15 presidential election.[79] Her political positions have mostly been described asconservative in the media.[80][81][82]Agence France-Presse wrote that Grabar-Kitarović represents moderates within her party.[83] Some observers describe her actions aspopulist,[84][85][86] ornationalist.[87][88]
On the societal level, she moderates the positions of her party, traditionally reticent towardsLGBT rights andabortion. On the issue ofsame-sex marriage, Grabar-Kitarović expressed her support for theLife Partnership Act, which enabled same-sex couples to enjoy rights equal to heterosexual married couples except in adoption, as good compromise.[89]
Grabar-Kitarović considers that the prohibition of abortion would not solve anything, and stresses that attention should be paid 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 can eventually be taken care of in an appropriate manner."[90][91]
Grabar-Kitarović has spoken in support of green initiatives along with the dangers of climate change for the environment and global security.[92] In 2016, she signed theParis Agreement at UN Headquarters in New York City.[93] During another speech at the UN, she stated that climate change was a "powerful weapon of mass destruction."[94]
In 2020, she was elected to theInternational Olympic Committee as the 4th representative of Croatia in this body and first female member in this position.[11][12]
Grabar-Kitarović has been married toJakov Kitarović since 1996 and they have two children: Katarina (born on 23 April 2001), afigure skater and Croatia's national junior champion; and Luka (born c. 2003).[95][96][97]
Grabar-Kitarović is a practisingRoman Catholic.[98] In an interview for Croatian Catholic Network, she stated that she regularly attendsMass and prays theRosary.[99]
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