- Vlado Bučkovski
Vlado Bučkovski ( _mk. Владо Бучковски) (born
December 2 1962 inSkopje ) is a formerprime minister of theRepublic of Macedonia , elected byparliament onDecember 15 2004 . He was previously thedefense minister of Macedonia from May 2001 to November 2001 and from November 2002 to December 2004. He was president of the Social Democratic Union of Macedonia. After 2006's election defeat by the centre-right Radmila Šekerinska took over the party's leadership. [ [http://seenews.com/ SeeNews, Sofia, Bulgaria, undated] .Accessed: 2007-08-27] .]Education
Bučkovski graduated from the Faculty of Law in Skopje in 1997, while he took his M.A. degree in 1999 at the Faculty of Law in Skopje. He took his Ph.D. degree at the Faculty of Law in Skopje in 2002, on topic "Roman and Contemporary Obligation Law".
Working and political experience
From 1987 to 1988 Bučkovski worked as an expert collaborator in the Parliament of the
Socialist Republic of Macedonia , then part of Yugoslavia. In the period from 1988 to 2002 he worked as a lecturer, collaborator, junior assistant and as an assistant at the Faculty of Law in Skopje, while in 2003 he worked as an associate professor at the same faculty. In the period from 1998 to 2000 Bučkovski was a member of the State Election Commission; while in 2000-2001 he was a Chairman of Skopje City Council. In the period from May 13 until November 26, 2001 he performed the function of a Minister of Defense in the wide coalition Government. From November 1, 2002 until December 2004, Bučkovski was a member of the Government of the Republic of Macedonia in which he performed the function of a Minister of Defense.Bučkovski became a Chairman of the Government's Legal Council on September 15, 2003. He was elected SDSM Leader on November 26, 2004. On the same day, he was assigned a mandate for a composition of a new Government, following the resignation of former Prime Minister
Hari Kostov . He served as prime minister until after the 2006 parliamentary elections, in which his party had a disappointing performance and a new government took office.candal
Sobranie delegates belonging to parties in Macedonia's centre-right ruling coalition voted on August 20 2007 to strip former premier Bučkovski of his immunity from prosecution. That left him liable to being arrested on charges of involvement in an arms procurement deal that cost the country 3 million Euros (about US $ 4.04 million) [ [http://www.setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/features/setimes/features/2007/08/21/feature-01 "Former Macedonian prime minister stripped of immunity from prosecution" – Southeast European Times 21 August 2007] . Accessed: 2007-08-27.]
He had allegedly benefited from conspiring in 2001 with former Macedonian army chief of staff, General Metodi Stamboliski, prosecutors said, in buying and selling off spare parts for the army's Russian-made T-55 tanks. Stamboliski was arrested in late July 2007, charged with embezzling 1.8 million Euros (about US $2.5 million) and released on bail. [ [http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/08/01/europe/EU-GEN-Macedonia-Corruption-Probe.php "Probe widens in Macedonia military corruption scandal" – International Herald Tribune, 1 August 2007] .Accessed: 2007-08-27.]
References
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
