Date of Birth: 
Place of Birth: Virovitica, Virovitica-Podravina County, Croatia
About Željka Antunović
- Željka Antunovic (Croatian pronunciation: [??^??ka antu?n??it??]; born 15 September 1955) is a former Croatian centre-left politician and the deputy president of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), the largest opposition party in Croatia.
- She also served as the 9th Minister of Defence from 2002 until 2003.
- She was the first and to date only female holder of the office. Antunovic was born in Virovitica, SFR Yugoslavia (present-day Republic of Croatia) She entered the political scene in 1990 when she joined the Social Democrats of Croatia (SDH), a centre-left party - formed after establishment of democracy across Yugoslavia - and originally a major rival of the SDP, who had in turn recently succeeded the League of Communists of Croatia.
- However, following disastrous results of the SDH in parliamentary elections, the party accepted the SDP's offer of unification, which occurred in 1994.
- Antunovic, together with Antun Vujic, gradually rose through the ranks of SDP. Antunovic has served as a member of Croatian Parliament from 1995 to 1999, and from 2003 onwards.
- At the party conference in 2000, she was elected as a deputy president of SDP.
- Between 2000 and 2003, she served as a deputy Prime Minister and was named the first woman to hold the portfolio of Defence in the second cabinet of Ivica Racan, serving from 2002 until the end of the cabinet's term in 2003. On 31 January 2007, Racan announced that he was temporarily leaving politics due to health reasons.
- Antunovic then took over the chairmanship of the Party; and, on 11 April, following further deterioration in Racan's health, he resigned as leader of the party, leaving Antunovic as head of the SDP until the next party convention.
- She ran for president at the party convention on 2 June 2007, together with Milan Bandic, Zoran Milanovic and Tonino Picula.
- She was defeated by Milanovic in the second round of voting. After her retirement from politics, she started a consulting company.
- She took part in the Ivo Josipovic's campaign for the Croatian presidential election, 2014–15.
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