Željko Kerum

Politician

1960 –

65

Who is Željko Kerum?

Željko Kerum is a Croatian entrepreneur and politician. He was mayor of Split, between 2009 and 2013, when he failed to qualify for the second round of elections. He also owned the supermarket chain Kerum until it folded in 2012.

Kerum was born in the village of Ogorje in the Dalmatian hinterland. He graduated from the Technical High School |Technical High School in Split, Croatia in 1978. In 1981 he got his first job in the Split construction company Melioracija spending a year in Iraq working on military bases. He founded the company Kerum in 1989, opening his first convenience store in 1990. Six years later he opened his first supermarket in the Lora neighborhood of Split. In 2003 he bought the Diokom industrial facilities and in 2007 he opened the Joker Shopping Mall|Joker Shopping Mall, the largest in Dalmatia at the time.

In the first round of the 2009 elections for mayor of Split, Kerum won 40.21% of the popular vote, while his closest rival Ranko Ostojić won 34.72%. On May 31, he won 58.42% of the vote, making him the incumbent mayor of Split.

In September 2009 there was a scandal in Croatia surrounding Kerum, because of his controversial quotes on the TV show Nedjeljom u 2 on national television channel HRT, where he said that "Serbs and Montenegrins are no good nor can't do anything good." This was followed by words that are referred as hate speech by many politicians around Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro. He said he would never let a Serb marry his daughter, into his family. He also said that 70% of the journalists in Croatia were in fact Yugoslavs, without a home, thus bringing so much misinformation, he had concluded this on the basis of surnames.

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Born
Sep 25, 1960
Muć
Profession

Submitted
on July 23, 2013

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