Radovan Žerjav (born 2 December 1968) is a

Slovenia Slovenia ( ; sl, Slovenija ), officially the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene: , abbr.: ''RS''), is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast, an ...

n conservative politician. Between 2007 and 2008 he served as Minister of Transport. During the second term under Janez Janša, he in 2012 served as Minister of Economic Development and Technology, which he left since Janša was ignoring the ''2012–2013 Investigation Report on the parliamentary parties' leaders'' by

Commission for the Prevention of Corruption of the Republic of Slovenia The Commission for the Prevention of Corruption of the Republic of Slovenia (acronym CPC; sl, "Komisija za preprečevanje korupcije Republike Slovenije", KPKRS) is an independent anti-corruption agency with a broad mandate in the field of preventi ...

.Official News
on the Commission's website, 10 January 2013, Ljubljana, Slovenia.
(In Slovene: "Najmočnejša politika ne vesta odkod jima denar"), Delo, 9 January 2013Žerdin, A. (201
There is no room for an unexplained sources of money in the public servants' budgets
(In Slovene: "V bilancah funkcionarjev ni prostora za gotovino neznanega izvora"), Delo Since 2009, he has been the Chairman of the Slovenian People's Party and a deputy in the

National Assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the repre ...

. Žerjav was born in

Maribor Maribor ( , , , ; also known by other #Name, historical names) is the second-largest city in Slovenia and the largest city of the traditional region of Styria (Slovenia), Lower Styria. It is also the seat of the City Municipality of Maribor, th ...

, Slovenia, then part of the

Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, commonly referred to as SFR Yugoslavia or simply as Yugoslavia, was a country in Central and Southeast Europe. It emerged in 1945, following World War II, and lasted until 1992, with the breakup of Yug ...

. He spent his childhood in the Prekmurje region of eastern Slovenia. He attended a bilingual Slovene- Hungarian primary school in Lendava, and high school in Murska Sobota. In 1988, he enrolled in the University of Maribor, graduating from

chemical engineering Chemical engineering is an engineering field which deals with the study of operation and design of chemical plants as well as methods of improving production. Chemical engineers develop economical commercial processes to convert raw materials int ...

in 1993. In 1996, he continued his studies, and in 2003, he received his master's degree in chemical engineering. After having finished his studies, he took up the job at the oil company Nafta Lendava. In 1999, he became the head of development in the company, and as of 2004 he became Assistant Director of Nafta Lendava for the technical sector. In 2007, he was appointed Director of Nafta Biodizel, established with the purpose to set up the bio-diesel production within the group of Nafta Lendava. In September 2007, he was appointed Minister of Transport in the center-right government of Janez Janša. In the parliamentary election of 2008, he was elected to the

Slovenian National Assembly The National Assembly ( sl, Državni zbor Republike Slovenije, or ), is the representative democracy, general representative body of Slovenia. According to the Constitution of Slovenia and the Constitutional Court of Slovenia, it is the major p ...

. In March 2009, he was elected Chairman of the Slovenian People's Party. Besides Slovene, he is fluent in German, English and

Serbo-Croatian Serbo-Croatian () – also called Serbo-Croat (), Serbo-Croat-Bosnian (SCB), Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian (BCS), and Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS) – is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and ...

and also has a basic knowledge of Hungarian.

References

External links

Official biography (in English)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Zerjav, Radovan 1968 births Living people Politicians from Maribor Slovenian People's Party politicians Deputy Prime Ministers of Slovenia Transport ministers of Slovenia Members of the National Assembly (Slovenia) Ministers of Economic Development and Technology of Slovenia University of Maribor alumni