Benjamina Karić

Benjamina Karić (Бењамина Карић; Londrc; born 8 April 1991) is a Bosnian politician serving as the 39th mayor of Sarajevo since April 2021. She has been a member of the Social Democratic Party since 2009.

Karić was born in Sarajevo in 1991. She graduated from the University of Sarajevo and earned her doctorate from the University of Zenica. She later worked as an assistant at the Faculty of Law at the University of Travnik and in Kiseljak. Following the 2020 municipal elections, Karić became mayor of Sarajevo in 2021 as a replacement for Bogić Bogićević, who decided to pull out of the candidacy for mayor shortly before.

Early life and education
Karić was born on 8 April 1991 in Sarajevo, SR Bosnia and Herzegovina, SFR Yugoslavia, to Bosnian Muslim father Hasan Londrc and Serb mother Branka née Đinđić. She graduated from two faculties at the same time, the Faculty of Law, University of Sarajevo and the Department of History of the Faculty of Philosophy in Sarajevo. She earned her doctorate in law from the University of Zenica in 2018.

Karić is a recipient of the Silver Badge of the University of Sarajevo for Outstanding Achievement in Undergraduate and Postgraduate Studies. She is an author of fifty publications, books, articles and translations from Latin to Bosnian.

In 2014, she was an assistant at the Faculty of Law, University of Travnik and in Kiseljak.

Karić joined the Social Democratic Party at the age of 18 in 2009, becoming the party's vice president ten years later, in 2019.

Appointment
Following the 2020 Bosnian municipal elections, Bogić Bogićević, former member of the Presidency of Yugoslavia in the late 1980s and early 1990s, announced that he would accept the appointment as mayor of Sarajevo by the four-party liberal alliance, colloquially called the Four, which was set to govern the City Council after the elections, and that also included the Social Democratic Party (SDP BiH). However, on 24 March 2021, he decided to pull out of the candidacy because of conflicts in the alliance. Karić was then proposed as a potential candidate, with the SDP BiH officially announcing that she would be the new candidate for the office of mayor on 5 April 2021.

Three days later on 8 April, Karić was unanimously elected by members of the City Council of Sarajevo to become the 39th mayor of the city, succeeding Abdulah Skaka.

Tenure


In June 2021, Karić visited the northwestern Bosnian city of Banja Luka, where she met with its mayor Draško Stanivuković, marking this event the first time after 26 years, and since the end of the Bosnian War, that the mayors of both Sarajevo and Banja Luka, as the two largest cities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, have met each other. Later during that same month, Karić and Istočno Sarajevo mayor Ljubiša Ćosić signed a memorandum on the construction of a bike path, planned to connect Sarajevo and the town of Pale. On 30 June, the city's authorities launched a project to rebuild the astronomical observatory located on the mountain Trebević. On 8 July 2021, she visited Istanbul and there met with its mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu. On 17 July, the eve of her 100th day in office, Karić revealed plans for constructions of a large urban park, bike paths and excursion sites.

On 12 November 2021, the Sarajevo City Administration put up a monument in Kazani, honoring ethnic Serbs living inside besieged Sarajevo, who were victims of a mass murder by the forces of Mušan Topalović, commander of the 10th Mountain Brigade in the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina during the Bosnian War. On 15 November, Karić and High Representative Christian Schmidt unveiled the monument. UDIK, which was one of initiators of the monument, and families of the victims did not attend the unveiling after it was revealed that the perpetrators' names would be omitted from the plaque.

Throughout 2023, façades in Sarajevo's center, mostly those built during the Austro-Hungarian period, have been undergoing renovations.

In June 2023, Karić refused to project the rainbow flag, a symbol of LGBT pride, on the City Hall, and opted not to publicly show her support for the LGBT community, unlike most of her fellow SDP BiH members who have regularly showed support for the community.

Following a large escalation of the Gaza–Israel conflict in October 2023, Karić said it was "hypocritical to condemn Hamas' attack on Israel, and not to condemn all that happened before and after it".

In June 2024, it was reported that Karić would run for municipal mayor of Novo Sarajevo, a municipality within the city of Sarajevo, in the Bosnian municipal elections. The SDP BiH confirmed Karić's candidacy in July 2024.

Personal life
She is married to Alen Karić, and together they have one child. She lives with her family in Sarajevo.

In addition to her native Bosnian, Karić speaks English and German fluently.