Fatmir Sejdiu, President of Kosovo
Fatmir Sejdiu became the president of Kosovo on 10 February 2006, replacing Ibrahim Rugova, who died of lung cancer on 21 January. A senior member of Kosovo's biggest party, the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK), and a longtime close ally of his predecessor, he was elected to the post by the province's 120-seat assembly by a 80-12 vote.
Sejdiu was born on 23 October 1951 in the village of Pakastica, near the town of Podujevo in northern Kosovo, where he completed his primary and secondary education. He graduated from the Faculty of Law at the University of Pristina and holds a PhD degree in Law. He has served as a professor at the Faculty of Law and the Faculty of Political Science at the University of Pristina.
At the time of his election, Sejdiu was the secretary general of the LDK, the head of its parliamentary group and a member of the assembly presidency. He has been a leading member of the LDK since its formation in the early 1990s by a group of intellectuals, led by Rugova.
Sejdiu was first elected a member of Kosovo's parliament in November 2001, when the province held its first free elections since the end of the 1998-1999 conflict.
He was one of the authors of the Constitutional Framework of Kosovo in 2001.
Sejdiu is considered to be a moderate politician, but less of an idealist than Rugova, Kosovo's pro-independence icon.
Sejdiu's nomination for the post was officially confirmed on 7 February. The only nominee for the presidency, he was elected ten days before the start of a key phase in the UN-led negotiations on Kosovo's final status, seven years after the province became a de facto UN protectorate.
Sejdiu, whose election to the presidency made him also the head of the Kosovo negotiating team, vowed to pursue the Kosovo Albanian majority's quest for independence from Serbia.
"I will do my best so that the team of negotiators finishes the talks successfully in 2006," Sejdiu pledged on 10 February. "Kosovo's independence is non-negotiable."
Sejdiu is fluent in Albanian, English and French.
He lives in Pristina with his wife and three children.
