Bujar Nishani member of political party Democratic Party of Albania
Early life
Nishani was born in Durrës, Albania, on 29 September 1966 to a couple of teachers with roots from Gjirokastër. He was a distant relative of Omer Nishani, Chairman of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania's Presidium, but during communism Bujar changed his surname to Mehmeti.He graduated at the Skanderbeg Military University in 1988, and followed up in 1996 with master's studies on "defense resources management" in the United States at the Naval Postgraduate School. In 2004, he graduated from the Law Faculty of University of Tirana, where he also studied jurisprudence. He completed his master's degree in European studies in 2005.Political career
After the fall of communism in Albania in 1991, Nishani joined the Democratic Party of Albania (DP).  With the appointment of Safet Zhulali as  Minister of Defense in 1992, he was hired as the ministry's expert and director of foreign relations. Two years later, in 1994, he was promoted to the office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs dealing with relations with NATO. In 1996 he was called to work as one of Zhulali's assistants until the Democratic Party lost at the 1997 parliamentary election. It was then that Nishani began his political career.In 2001, he was elected as general secretary of the DP's branch in Tirana and in the 2003 local election obtained a seat in the Tirana Municipal Council. Nishana became a member of the DP's National Council two years later and subsequently became a member of the party's central presidency.Nishani won a seat for Tirana's 34th constituency in the 2005 parliamentary election, and was re-elected in 2009.He became Minister of Interior on 20 March 2007, a post he held until 17 September 2009, and again from 25 April 2011 until his elections to become the new Albanian President in June 2012. On 10 September 2009, Prime Minister Sali Berish announced his new cabinet after being reappointed and counted on Nishani to be his Minister of Justice, an office between 17 September 2009 and 25 April 2011.
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