NALAS Vice-Presidents

The NALAS Vice-Presidents are elected by the General Assembly and represent NALAS at various events. In addition, they support the Executive Bureau in their work.

Current NALAS vice-presidents are Mr Refik Rrugeja from Albania, Mr Ozgen Keskin from Turkey and Mr Anton Pershak from Slovenia. The current vice-presidents were elected by the NALAS Assembly at the Fifth NALAS General Assembly Meeting held in Istanbul on 11 December 2009.

NALAS Vice-Presidents
Mr Refik Rrugeja	Mr Ozgen Keskin	Mr Anton Peršak

Mr Özgen Keskin

NALAS vice-president Mr. Özgen Keskin is mayor of the Bursa/Yıldırım District Municipality (wiki) in Turkey and an executive committee member of the Union of Municipalities of Marmara.

Mr. Özgen Keskin graduated at the Turkish Literature Department of Education Faculty and holds a masters degree in Turkish Language and Literature at Atatürk University. Starting his career as a teacher of Turkish Language and Literature in different cities of Turkey and a school director, he has also served as a director of National Education. He is the author of eighteen books. He served as Deputy Mayor. He took part in some NGO's such as head of Union of Writers and Intellectuals Organization. He was appointed to Regional Directorate of Foundations in 1997. He was elected as Mayor of Yıldırım Municipality at the local elections in March 2004, where he is still a mayor.

The vision of Mr.Özgen Keskin is to make Yıldırım Municipality not only trusted by the citizens and employees, but also to help everyone live in a modern city; make the municipality pioneer and a good example at both national and local field. Özgen Keskin, on the adaptation process of Turkey to EU, established the EU Coordination Unit in order to make municipality benefit from EU funds and to make public institutions and NGO's, which are indispensable elements of participatory democracy, work in coordination.

Mr Anton Peršak

NALAS vice-president Mr. Tone Peršak is mayor of the Municipality of Trzin (wiki) in Slovenia and vice-president of the Association of municipalities and towns of Slovenia.

Mr. Peršak graduated comparative literature and literary theory at the Faculty of arts and theatre and radio directing at the Academy for theatre, radio, film and television in Slovenia. Starting his career as theatre director of Chamber theatre 55 in Sarajevo and assistant professor at the Theatre Academy in Ljubljana, he has made a big contribution to Slovene culture and art with books, theatre performances and TV and radio plays. He started his career in politics with joining the Slovene independence movement in the 80'. Fighting for democracy and Slovene independence, he has been one of the co-writers of the famous “writers constitution” in 1988. He has been parliament member from 1990-1996 and is state councillor since 2002. He’s been also elected for the second time as vice-president of the Association of municipalities and towns of Slovenia.

One of the best indicators of his competence is the fact, that Mr. Peršak remains mayor of Trzin, one of the most developed municipalities in Slovenia, since 1999. In his attempt to make Trzin the first low-energy municipality in Slovenia, he follows a strategic development plan with emphasis on life-quality, integration of housing estate and economic growth, as well as his excellent sense for the needs of its residents. For this reason municipality of Trzin enforced low-interest rate loans for better façades isolation and window exchanges, improved the energy rates of public buildings, and took care of gas supply and the use of biomass. These efforts culminate in the construction of a kindergarten with the use of solar and geothermal energy.