Božo Petrov

He previously served as mayor of his native Metković from 2013 to 2016, and Deputy Prime Minister in the cabinet of Tihomir Orešković from January until his election as speaker in October 2016. Petrov resigned his position as speaker on 4 May 2017, amidst a government and parliamentary crisis. Having held the office for a little over six months, Petrov is to date the shortest serving Speaker of the Parliament since 1991.

The new government was approved by the Sabor on 22 January 2016. Petrov was named Deputy Prime Minister. Along with Petrov, six ministers in the government were nominated by Most.

Petrov was elected as the 11th Speaker of the Croatian Parliament on 14 October 2016 with 132 members of Parliament voting in favor, 1 against and 12 abstaining. Having taken office two days before his 37th birthday, Petrov became the youngest person ever to hold the position of the speaker. As per a post-election agreement between Petrov's Bridge of Independent Lists party and the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) led by Prime Minister Andrej Plenković, Petrov was due to serve as speaker for a 2-year period and would thereafter have been replaced by speaker from the HDZ, presumably the party's general secretary and former foreign minister Gordan Jandroković. Petrov resigned from office on 4 May 2017 amidst a government crisis which began on 27 April 2017 when Prime Minister Plenković removed three government ministers supported by Petrov's Most party and escalated further to a point where Plenković's Croatian Democratic Union began to gather signatures for Petrov's removal from office via no confidence vote. Croatian Parliament formally dismissed him from his position as speaker on 5 May 2017. Petrov remains a member of the Parliament. He was succeeded as speaker by the former foreign minister and deputy prime minister Gordan Jandroković on 5 May 2017.

For the 2015 parliamentary election, Petrov's Most party went national and was joined by independent local politicians from other parts of the country. Led by Petrov, the party campaigned for fiscal responsibility, reduction of government spending and public debt, tax cuts, reforms in the public sector and the reduction of administrative divisions in Croatia.

In 2013, the Bridge of Independent Lists participated in the local elections in the town of Metković. The party won 46.25% of votes and 9 out of 17 seats in the city council. Petrov won 45.78% of the votes and entered the second round of election for the mayor against Stipo Gabrić, incumbent mayor since 1997. In the second round Petrov won with 67.94% of the votes and became the mayor of his hometown. At the same election Bridge of Independent Lists won 9.97% of the votes in county elections and entered the County Assembly of the Dubrovnik-Neretva County.

On 17 November 2012, Petrov and other local politicians and activists life founded the Bridge of Independent Lists (MOST) as a regionalist political platform and was chosen as its first president.

Petrov began his political career as an independent candidate in the 2011 parliamentary election on the list of the conservative Croatian Growth (HRAST) party. He eventually ended his collaboration with Hrast because "they betrayed its members and sided with the HDZ", which he did not approve.

In March, Petrov and his party announced amendments to the law regulating the rights of former presidents of Croatia that would rescind the Office of the Former President. This move revoked the entitlements of former president Stjepan Mesić, who criticized the move, and saved around 600,000 HRK to the government budget. In the same month, Petrov started negotiations with labour union representatives over a 6 percent wage increase for public sector workers, as GDP grew over 2% for two consecutive quarters. The wage rise was signed in 2009 by the government of Ivo Sanader with labour unions. The government had not planned funds for the wage increase in the 2016 budget and wanted to negotiate new terms of the contract, as there was no money for its implementation.

Božo Petrov (pronounced [ˌbǒːʒo ˈpětroʋ]; born 16 October 1979) is a Croatian politician and psychiatrist who served as Speaker of the Croatian Parliament from 2016 to 2017. He has been the president of The Bridge party since 2012.