Mirela Holy (born 15 December 1971) is a

Croatia Croatia, officially the Republic of Croatia, is a country in Central Europe, Central and Southeast Europe, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. It borders Slovenia to the northwest, Hungary to the northeast, Serbia to the east, Bosnia and Herze ...

n academic, politician and a former leader of the

centre-left Centre-left politics is the range of left-wing political ideologies that lean closer to the political centre. Ideologies commonly associated with it include social democracy, social liberalism, progressivism, and green politics. Ideas commo ...

Croatian Sustainable Development party (ORaH). She served as Croatia's Minister of Environment from 2011 until 2012, the first and to date only woman to hold this position.

Education

Holy studied ethnology and cultural anthropology, and comparative literature at the

University of Zagreb The University of Zagreb (, ) is a public university, public research university in Zagreb, Croatia. It is the largest Croatian university and one of the oldest continuously operating universities in Europe. The University of Zagreb and the Unive ...

and received her PhD in

cultural studies Cultural studies is an academic field that explores the dynamics of contemporary culture (including the politics of popular culture) and its social and historical foundations. Cultural studies researchers investigate how cultural practices rel ...

in 2005.

Minister of Environmental Protection

From 23 December 2011 until 13 June 2012 Holy was Minister of Environmental Protection and Nature in the centre left Government of Zoran Milanović. She resigned her position on 6 June 2012 after an outcry over an email in which she asked manager of the HŽ Holding to consider the possibility of not firing his secretary, because she was an elderly woman with more than 15 years of experience, and was working in HŽ Holding for less than a month. Mihael Zmajlović succeeded her as minister.

ORaH establishment

In 2013 she left the

Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology. Active parties Form ...

due to her public disagreement with the party's environmental policy. After her departure from SDP, Holy founded a new party called ORaH (''ORaH'' means ''walnut'' in Croatian) which stands for ''Održivi razvoj Hrvatske'' (Croatian Sustainable Development). She left the party in February 2016.

Activism

She is one of the most recognizable Croatian female politicians and a notable supporter of

LGBT LGBTQ people are individuals who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or questioning. Many variants of the initialism are used; LGBTQIA+ people incorporates intersex, asexual, aromantic, agender, and other individuals. The gro ...

and

women's rights Women's rights are the rights and Entitlement (fair division), entitlements claimed for women and girls worldwide. They formed the basis for the women's rights movement in the 19th century and the feminist movements during the 20th and 21st c ...

. She was also named 'Croatian Homofriend' in 2012.

Academic career

Since 2017, Holy has been a professor at VERN university. She has also acted as the university’s head of ''Cyber Communication and Network Science'' programme and the ''Sustainable Tourism Management'' programme.

Private life

Mirela Holy was born to a

Czech Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus *Czech (surnam ...

father and a Croatian mother. She has been in a 15-year-long cohabitation with Croatian photographer Siniša Bužan. The couple has no plans to get married.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Holy, Mirela 1971 births Living people Politicians from Zagreb Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb alumni Social Democratic Party of Croatia politicians Environment ministers of Croatia Women government ministers of Croatia