Morto Janez Drnovšek

[Starlite]

BBC

Slovenia independence leader dies

Slovenia's former President Janez Drnovsek, who helped lead his country to independence and EU membership, has died at the age of 57, his office says.

Mr Drnovsek was prime minister from 1992 until 2002, when he was elected president. He did not run for a second term in December due to ill health

No cause of death was given, but he had a cancerous kidney removed in 1999. The disease later spread to his lungs.

The illness prompted him to promote a healthy lifestyle and vegetarian diet.

In recent years, Mr Drnovsek wrote three books on spirituality which became best-sellers in Slovenia and were translated into several languages.

'Awakening'

A trained economist and former banker, Mr Drnovsek was first elected to the Slovenian parliament in 1986, and served as a chairman of the former Yugoslavia's rotating presidency between 1989 and 1990.

In 1991, he helped secure multi-party democracy and independence for Slovenia by acting as the country's main negotiator in talks with the Yugoslav army.

It is hard for me to say if the change was only caused by the illness... It is true that the illness acts as a shock - it awakens one

Janez Drnovsek

After the collapse of the Democratic Opposition of Slovenia (Demos) coalition in 1992, Mr Drnovsek helped found the centre-left Liberal Democrats and led the party to victory in that year's parliamentary election.

During the 10 years he served as prime minister, Mr Drnovsek helped build a healthy economy and stable democracy, and played a major role in preparing Slovenia to join the European Union and Nato in 2004.

In 2002, he ran for the presidency of Slovenia, and was elected in the second round.

After three years in the post, Mr Drnovsek revealed that doctors had diagnosed what he described as incurable "formations", believed to be cancer, on his lungs and liver.

The diagnosis prompted him to radically change his life. He cut his staff, quit the Liberal Democrats and launched a Movement for Justice and Development open to "all people who wish to change the world for the better".

He became a champion of the environment, animal rights and the oppressed, criticised his government and often boycotted state occasions.

"It is hard for me to say if the change was only caused by the illness," he told the Associated Press last year. "It is true that the illness acts as a shock - it awakens one."

He did not run for a second five-year term in December and was succeeded by Danilo Tuerk.

[Stefano79]

No se pol morir cusì giovani...

[Starlite]

Sloveniatimes.com

Former President Janez Drnovsek Dies

23.02.2008

By STA

Former President and Prime Minister Janez Drnovsek died at his home overnight at the age of 57.

Drnovsek was a seminal figure in Slovenia's transition to a market economy and its membership of the EU and NATO, leading Slovenia as prime minister for most of the 1990s and in the last five years as the president.

He battled cancer for most of his last ten years in office. In July 1999, doctors had removed one of his kidneys, but in late 2003 he would admit that medical tests had showed that the cancer had reappeared.

As a result, the soft-spoken technocrat underwent a major personal transformation, becoming a vocal advocate of healthy living and positive thinking.

To the surprise of everyone, Drnovsek announced he had stopped following modern medicine and changed his lifestyle. He sold his house in Ljubljana, moved to a nearby village and started eating vegetarian food and baking his own bread.

He was reported to be seeing healers and established an altruistic forum, the Movement for Justice and Development, which preached peace on earth and a healthy, spiritual way of life.

However, in an apparent admission that the new way of life failed to help him overcome cancer, Drnovsek rejected in October 2007 the public notion that he favoured alternative medicine over conventional when he inaugurated the new premises of the Oncology Institute.

He said at the time that "oncology treatment is the only effective method of treating cancer - there is no alternative. Any healer that claims to be able to stop this disease is a charlatan".

This would also be one of the last times Drnovsek appeared in the public. He quietly handed over the presidency to his successor Danilo Tuerk in late December and had not been seen in the public since.

[Stefano79]

I ga accennà al tg.

[Maurizio72Ts]

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