Hanna Roggeveen

Hana Belanova Forĝisto (née Tomasido; born August 6, 1948) is a Bijani stateswoman, human rights worker and politician, who was the 7th President of Bijan, serving from July 1, 1994 until October 1, 2005. The first female head of state in Bijan, Forĝisto had previously been elected to various local and county councils, and served as a member of the Bijani Parliament from 1984 to 1988. In addition to her political career, she had a long and extensive career in trade unions and different non-governmental organizations. Her work for advancing human rights has been notable. She was, among other things, an early proponent of gay rights, charing the main Bijani gay rights organization Glatro in the mid-1980s.

Forĝisto rose from humble beginnings, having lived through the aftermath of the Bijani Civil War as the daughter of a single mother in the working-class Espero neighborhood in Hadar. She graduated from the Bijani National University, where she studied law from 1968 to 1973. In 1976, she joined the Bijani Labour Party and worked as a lawyer for various trade unions during her early career.

Forĝisto served in the Bijani Parliament for a single term, from 1984 to 1988, representing Hadar. She also had a long career in the Hadar Unified Council, the combined city-county council that governs the Bijani capital, serving from 1974 until 1986. In the late 1980s, she became less active in the Labour Party and in politics in general, and did mostly humanitarian work. The Parliamentary Committee on Nominations and Elections first idenitifed her as a potential candidate for President of Bijan in 1988, but at 39 years old at the time, she was considered too young to be viable candidate and was not included in the committee's final recommendation. When then-President Tomaso Bakisto announced he would not seek a second term as President in 1994, she actively sought a nomination. At the presidential election in June 1994, she received 60.5% of votes in the first round, only nineteen votes short of the two-thirds parliamentary majority required for nomination. In the second round, she received 76.6% of the votes (229 out of 299) thus becoming the 7th President of Bijan.

During her presidency, she was extremely popular among Bijanis:  her approval ratings rose and reached a peak of 88% in 1997. A visible and vocal president, Forĝisto contrated sharply with her predecessors, who rarely made public appearances and spoke on issues of the day. She is widely credited as having breathed new life into what many had perceived as a politically redundant office, and transforming it, and by extension herself, into a symbol of the Bijani people. She gave biweekly radio addresses on various social and cultural isses, made a children's program called El La Preszidanta Skribtablo ("From the President's Desk"), and institued the annual Novjara Parolado ("New Year Speech"), which her successors have continued. In 1997 and 1998, she made several speeches commemorating 50th anniversaries of the end of the Bijani Civil War and the bringing of democracy to Bijan, which further endeared her to the public. Facing little serious opposition, she was re-elected by the Parliament in 2000 to a second term as President.

In early 2005, she announced her intention to vacate the office of President on October 1, 2005, eight months before her term was set to expire, to return the process of presidential elections and inaugurations back to its traditional autumn schedule. She was succeeded as President by Andreo Marŝanto at noon on October 1, 2005.

Forĝisto is widely known for her interest in human rights issues. In 1984–85, Forĝisto served as the chairperson of Glatro, the main LGBT rights organization in Bijan. During her presidency, she participated actively in discussion of women's rights and the issues of globalization. In 2006, she was mentioned by several Bijani and international sources as a potential candidate for United Nations Secretary-General.

Forĝisto is a member of the Council of Women World Leaders, an international network of former women presidents and prime ministers whose mission is to mobilize the highest-level women leaders globally for collective action on issues of critical importance to women and equitable development.