Bakir Izetbegović

Bakir Izetbegović (born 28 June 1956) is a Bosnian politician who served as the Bosniak member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina from 2010 to 2018. He has been the president of the Party of Democratic Action (SDA) since 2014.

Born in Sarajevo in 1956, Izetbegović is the son of the only president of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Alija Izetbegović. He graduated from the University of Sarajevo in 1981, working afterwards in architectural firms. After serving as director of the Construction Institute of the Sarajevo Canton, Izetbegović entered politics in 2000. In the 2006 general election, he was elected to the national Parliament.

In the 2010 general election, Izetbegović was elected Bosniak member of the Bosnian Presidency. He was re-elected four years later in the 2014 general election. As both Presidency member and president of the SDA, he took part in many constitutional reform talks for Bosnia and Herzegovina. During his presidency, Bosnia and Herzegovina faced difficulties following the 2014 Southeast Europe floods, as well as having mass riots some months before the floods. Following the 2018 general election, Izetbegović became a member of the national House of Peoples, serving until 2023. In both the 2022 and 2026 general elections, he once again ran for a seat in the Presidency as a Bosniak member, but was not elected on either occasion.

A member of the SDA since its foundation in 1990, Izetbegović has been a member of the party's presidency since 2002. He has been serving as the party's president since September 2014. Izetbegović has been accused of monopolizing the party and silencing most of his internal critics, while drawing power into his own hands and those of a few close allies.