Janez Janša
Janez Jansa, born on September 17, 1958, is the leader of the Slovenian Democratic Party since 1993, and served as Minister of Defense from 1990 to 1994, during the War of Independence. He is the former Prime Minister of Slovenia from 2004 to 2008, and again from 2012 to 2013. (In 2013 he was sentenced to two years of prison following corruption charges).
Education
Mr. Janez Jansa graduated from the university of Ljubljana in 1982.
Experience
He joined the Defense Secretariat of the Socialist Slovenian Republic as a trainee. In 1983, Janez Jansa engaged in dissidence against the Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA), using the opportunity of the gradual lifting of restrictions on the freedom to speech to express its views in articles and publications. He also engaged at that time in the pacifist moment, being one of the movement’s first Slovenian figures. In 1989, he was a founding member and vice-president of one of the first Slovenian opposition parties, the Slovenian Democratic Union (SDZ). Following the country’s first free elections in 1990, he became Minister of Defense and served till 1994. In 1993, he was elected president of the SDZ and remained in that position till 2009. In 2004, he became Prime Minister of Slovenia and served until 2008, then was reappointed in 2012 till 2013. He had to resign in 2013, following protests accusing him of subordinating Slovenian media, which too closely resembled the old regime and abuse of power. In 2013, he went to court for trial and was sentenced to prison, a sentence he started serving in June 2014.
