Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović (pronounced [ɡrǎbar kitǎːroʋitɕ] ⓘ; born 29 April 1968) is a Croatian politician and diplomat who served as the president of Croatia from 2015 to 2020.

She was minister of European Affairs from 2003 to 2005, the first female minister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration from 2005 to 2008, Croatian ambassador to the United States from 2008 to 2011 and assistant secretary general for public diplomacy at NATO under Secretaries General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and Jens Stoltenberg from 2011 to 2014.

[13] She was raised mainly in her parents' village of Lopača, just north of Rijeka, where the family owned a butcher shop and a ranch.

[13][14] Upon her return to Yugoslavia, she enrolled at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, graduating in 1993 with a Bachelor of Arts in English and Spanish languages and literature.

[5] In December 2015, Grabar-Kitarović began her doctoral studies in international relations at the Zagreb Faculty of Political Science.

[23] When Social Democratic Party of Croatia (SDP) came to power after 2000 elections Tonino Picula became minister of Foreign Affairs.

[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, or Ottawa Treaty, held that year in Zagreb.

Following the HDZ's victory in the 2007 parliamentary election and the subsequent formation of the Second Sanader Cabinet, she was reappointed as foreign minister, but was suddenly removed from the position on 12 January 2008.

[26] On March 8, 2008, while the President of Croatia was Stjepan Mesić, she became the Croatian ambassador to the United States, where she replaced Neven Jurica.

[29][30][31][32] In 2011, Grabar-Kitarović was appointed Assistant Secretary General for Public Diplomacy at NATO, the first women to hold the position.

[37] 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.

[39][40] It was confirmed in mid-2014 that she was to become the party's official candidate, going up against incumbent Ivo Josipović and newcomers Ivan Vilibor Sinčić and Milan Kujundžić.

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 the non-partisan Croatian-Canadian businessman Tihomir Orešković, who had been selected by HDZ and MOST only hours before the expiration of the President's delegated time frame for the naming of a Prime-Minister-designate.

[62] Grabar-Kitarović expressed her condolences to Slobodan Praljak's family after he committed suicide in The 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 of Buenos 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.

As some among them were members of the Ustaše movement,[67] her statement was interpreted by some, including Efraim Zuroff of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, as support for them.

[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".

[72] In August 2019, during the Victory Day celebrations in Knin, Grabar-Kitarović informally hinted that she would be seeking reelection to a second and final 5-year term as president in the upcoming election,[73] and formally confirmed this several days later in an interview for the right-wing publication Hrvatski tjednik (Croatian Weekly).

[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 former Social Democratic Prime Minister Zoran Milanović and conservative folk musician and former Member of Parliament Miroslav Škoro.

[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.

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%.

[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.

"[90][91] Grabar-Kitarović has spoken in support of green initiatives along with the dangers of climate change for the environment and global security.

[100] She speaks Croatian, English, Spanish and Portuguese fluently and has basic understanding of German, French and Italian.