Stjepan Mesic

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Stjepan Mesić (born December 24, 1934) has been the President of the Republic of Croatia since 2000.

Before becoming President, he was deputy in the Croatian Parliament in 1960's, Prime Minister of Croatia in 1990. He was elected Croatian member of the Yugoslav Federal Presidency where he served first as Vice President and then in 1991 as the last President of the Yugoslav Federal Presidency.

After that from 1992 he served as the President of the Croatian Parliament.

From 1990 he was a member of Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ). In 1994, he left that party with his several colleagues to form the new one - Croatian Independent Democrats (HND). Reasons were strongly disagreement with Croatian policy toward Bosnia and Herzegovina, privatization in war times and non-sanctioning the war profiters. Later, majority of HND members merged into Croatian People's Party (HNS).

After Franjo Tuđman died in December 1999, he was elected in 2 rounds the President of the Republic of Croatia in February 2000.

Early years

Stjepan Mesić, commonly shortened to Stipe Mesić, was born in Orahovica, Slavonia. He graduated from the gymnasium in Požega and from the Law Faculty of the University of Zagreb.

After becoming a lawyer, he worked in Orahovica and Našice. He finished compulsory military service and then became a municipal judge after passing judicial exams.

Mesić got married to Milka and they had two daughters.

He moved to Zagreb to work as a manager in the company "Univerzal". The managerial position (he was Director of General Affairs) implied that he was aligned with the Communist Party of Yugoslavia.

In 1966, he ran as an independent candidate in the election for his municipal council, and defeated two other candidates, one from the Communist Party and the other from the Socialist Union of Working People. In 1967, he became the mayor of Orahovica and a member of the Croatian Parliament.

As mayor, Mesić initiated the building of a private factory in the town, the first private factory in Yugoslavia. However, this was stopped by Tito as an attempt to silently introduce capitalism, which was illegal according to the then-current constitution. Mesić then proceeded to support the Croatian Spring movement which called for Croatian equality whithin Yugoslav Federation on economic, political and cultural level. The government indicted him for "acts of enemy propaganda". The initial process lasted 3 days in which 55 witnesses testified, only five against him, but he was sentenced to one year and two months in jail. He appealed and the trials prolongued, but eventually in 1975 he was incarcerated for one year, and served his sentence at the Stara Gradiška prison.

Mesić in the 1990s

He was elected again in 1990 as a candidate of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) on first multi-party elections in Croatia after World War II. He became the Prime Minister of Croatia and served from May until August 1990. He then resigned to be elected in the Yugoslav Federal Presidency where he served first as Vice-President.

Presidents rotated annually according to republic-province key automatically. When Mesić's turn came to automatically become the President, the Serbian Presidency Member Borisav Jović demanded voting in the Presidency. 4 members (Serbia, Montenegro, Vojvodina, Kosovo) were against him and 4 members (Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia) were in favor. That was considered as unconstitutional since every year Presidents rotated. Then, European Community mediators convinced Jović to admit Mesić as the President.

When Croatia declared its complete independence, he returned to Croatia and resigned from Presidency since was evident that SFR Yugoslavia did not exist anymore as far as the Croatians were concerned. In 1992, he was elected to Parliament to become the President of the Parliament.

In 1994, Mesić left HDZ to form new party Croatian Independent Democrats (Hrvatski Nezavisni Demokrati, HND). He opposed the Government policy toward Bosnia and Herzegovina accusing Franjo Tuđman that he agreed to carve Bosnia and Herzegovina with Slobodan Milošević. He also criticized privatization in war and unresolved privatization criminal and war profiters.

Later, he and the majority of his party merged into the Croatian People's Party (HNS).

Presidency of Croatia

He was elected President of the Republic of Croatia in 2000 after being elected as the joint candidate of the HNS, HSS, LS and IDS. After becoming president, he stepped down from his membership in the HNS.

He heavily criticized Franjo Tuđman policies as nationalistic, autoritharian, lack of free media and bad economy policy in which he favored more liberal approach in order to more open Croatian economy for foreign investment.

As President, in September 2000 he retired seven Croatian active generals who wrote two open letters to public in which they argued that current Government administration "is campaigning to criminalize Homeland War and that Government is accusing and neglecting Croatian Army". Mesić held that active duty officers could not write public political letters without approval of their Commander-in-Chief. Opposition parties condemned that President's decision as dangerous decision that could harm Croatian national security. Mesić later retired four more generals with similar rationale.

President Mesić is active in foreign policy in which he is in favor of realization of Croatian ambition to become European Union and NATO member. He also initiated mutual apologies for possible war crimes with the President of Serbia and Montenegro. After Constitutional ammendments in September 2000, he was deprived of most of his roles in domestic policy-making, which instead passed wholly to the Croatian Government and its Premier.

He was against USA military campaign against Iraq and Saddam Hussein regime without United Nations approval and mandate.

He is serving his 5 year term until February 2005.

External links

• Stjepan Mesić - biography

bg:Стиепан Месич de:Stjepan Mesić hr:Stjepan Mesić