Bosnian Islamic Community's electoral body of 373 members reelected the incumbent Grand Mufti Husein Kavazovic for a second seven-year term, the Community's Assembly Speaker Sakib Softic said on Saturday.
“I'm happy that the Islamic Community brought this process to an end, which I believe is very important for its future. We tried to preserve the process as democratic as possible. What's important to us is that the community is whole, united and that it continues to further develop itself,” Head of the Islamic Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina Husein Kavazovic said at the press conference after the election and added:
“I don't think we should change the course, but perhaps the speed. I will stick to the present course,” Kavazovic stressed.
He won a total of 291 votes while his opponent Muamer Zukorlic won 82 votes.
In his program, Kavazovic emphasized authenticity, openness and solidarity as guiding ideas in his work. He stressed he would continue to develop the European identity of Bosnia's Islamic Community, as an indigenous European Muslim community, assuming some responsibility in representing Islam in Europe.
Kavazovic also noted that the Islamic Community should serve as a waypoint towards the good of the entire society.
” I want to thank everyone who participated in this election. I said it before – I will use everything that is good from my opponents’ programmes. I will equally treat every part of the Islamic Community, from America to Australia. We will continue to develop relations with other religious communities. The Islamic Community should fight everything that is evil and bad in society. I consider this to be a great victory for the Islamic Community, ” Kavazovic concluded.
The Grand Mufti was born on Jula 3, 1964 in the northern Bosnian town of Gradacac. He comes from a traditional Islamic family with a long line of imams.
He went to the Gazi-Husrev Gey's Madrassa in Sarajevo where he received his secondary education and a title of Imam (a Muslim priest) and from 1985 to 1990 he studies Shariah Law at the Al-Azhar University in Kairo, Egypt.
Grand Mufti Husein Kavazovic speaks Arabic and English languages.
