ZORAN DJINDJIC: The murder in Belgrade of the Serbian Prime Minister, Zoran Djindjic, has deprived Serbia of its most capable and daring politician
His tireless organisational skills proved absolutely critical at the high point of his career, when the Democratic Opposition of Serbia reform alliance mobilised millions of people to topple the former dictator, Slobodan Milosevic, in October 2000.
But despite his success and his dashing good looks, Djindjic (50) was a deeply controversial figure in his own country. His critics accused him of maintaining close links to organised crime syndicates, and while his brisk self-confidence, arrogance and stubbornness may have been perceived as strengths elsewhere, in Serbia these attributes often counted against him.
Born in the northern Bosnian town of Bosanski Samac, the son of a Yugoslav People's Army officer, Djindjic was a bright student who became influenced by western Marxism and the Praxis group, the dissident circle of philosophers in Tito's Yugoslavia. He soon advanced to full-blooded political activism and was jailed in the 1970s for trying to establish a student opposition movement with colleagues from Croatia and Slovenia.
In the late 1970s he travelled to Germany to write his doctorate under the guidance of the leading Marxist philosopher, Jürgen Habermas. To finance his studies Djindjic started selling clothes, and his managerial skills developed rapidly.
From this point he led two lives, as a committed revolutionary and as a successful businessman. "Djindjic understood at a very early age that revolution and money-making were not mutually exclusive activities," the Greek diplomat Alexander Rondos noted in October 2000.
In the 1980s Djindjic spent most of his time in Germany, contributing to political debates on Yugoslavia and the European left. But he also developed another commercial sideline in this period, importing machine tools from communist East Germany into the former Yugoslavia.
He returned full-time to Yugoslavia in 1989, when he took up a post teaching philosophy in Novi Sad, the capital of the northern province.
Here he witnessed Milosevic's thugs storming the Vojvodina assembly and seizing control of the region in what was called "the anti-bureaucratic revolution."
That year he joined a broad spectrum of dissidents, including a large number of writers and intellectuals, in founding the Democratic Party.
The competing egos soon ensured that this large opposition movement to Milosevic splintered and collapsed. But Djindjic kept the name and, with a group of core younger activists, established Serbia's first mass modern pro-European party.
In 1996 and 1997 Djindjic and the Democratic Party persuaded tens and sometimes hundreds of thousands of Serbs to march through Belgrade for 88 consecutive days. They were protesting against Milosevic's attempt to deprive them of victory in local elections that saw almost all of Serbia's major cities fall into opposition hands.
Eventually, Milosevic backed down and Djindjic became Belgrade's first non-communist mayor since the second World War.
So outspoken was Djindjic that he felt compelled to flee Serbia for the neighbouring republic of Montenegro during the allied bombing campaign of Yugoslavia when the Kosovo conflict exploded in 1999.
He was given information that Milosevic intended making a scapegoat of him, and that his life was in danger.
He returned with a vengeance and the following year was chiefly responsible for drawing together Serbia's opposition. They were finally able to put up a candidate, Vojislav Kostunica, capable of defeating Milosevic in Yugoslavia's presidential election.
Djindjic himself became Serbian Prime Minister and quickly pushed through a number of painful economic and political reforms against bitter opposition from Kostunica.
The relationship between the two men, sometimes close to armed conflict, seriously hampered Serbia's attempt to introduce key reforms necessary to accelerate the country's integration into Europe.
His opponents accused him of kowtowing to the West, notably when he forced the delivery of Milosevic to The Hague. But in his short time as Prime Minister, Djindjic did more to assist Serbia in overcoming the disaster of the Milosevic years than any other politician.
He is survived by his wife Ruzica, a lawyer, and their two children, Jovana and Luka.
Zoran Djindjic, politician, born August 1st, 1952; died March 12th, 2003