| Stjepan Mesić | |
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| In office 18 February 2000 – 18 February 2010 |
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| Prime Minister | Ivica Račan Ivo Sanader Jadranka Kosor |
| Preceded by | Zlatko Tomčić (Acting) |
| Succeeded by | Ivo Josipović |
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15th President of SFR Yugoslavia
President of the Presidency of SFR Yugoslavia |
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| In office 30 June 1991 – 6 December 1991 |
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| Prime Minister | Ante Marković |
| Preceded by | Borisav Jović before vacatio |
| Succeeded by | Disbandment of Yugoslavia |
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| In office 30 May 1990 – 24 August 1990 |
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| President | Franjo Tuđman |
| Preceded by | Antun Milanović (President of the Executive Council) |
| Succeeded by | Josip Manolić |
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| In office 7 September 1992 – 24 May 1994 |
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| Preceded by | Žarko Domljan |
| Succeeded by | Nedjeljko Mihanović |
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| In office 30 June 1991 – 6 December 1991 |
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| Preceded by | Borisav Jović |
| Succeeded by | Branko Kostić |
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| Born | 24 December 1934 Orahovica, Kingdom of Yugoslavia (now Croatia) |
| Political party | Independent (2000–present)[1] |
| Other political affiliations |
League of Communists of Croatia (Before 1990) Croatian Democratic Union (1990–1994) Croatian Independent Democrats (1994–1997) Croatian People's Party (1997–2000) |
| Spouse(s) | Milka Dudundić |
| Alma mater | University of Zagreb |
| Profession | Judge Manager Politician |
| Religion | None (Agnostic)[2] |
Stjepan "Stipe" Mesić (Croatian pronunciation: [ˈstjɛpa:n ˈmɛ:sitɕ]) (born December 24, 1934) is a Croatian politician and a former President of Croatia. Before his ten-year presidency, he held the posts of the Prime Minister of Croatia, President of the Croatian Parliament, Mayor of Orahovica, the final president of SFR Yugoslavia, Secretary General of Non-Aligned Movement, and judge in Našice.[3]
Mesić was a deputy in the Croatian Parliament in the 1960s, and was then absent from politics until 1990 when he joined the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), and was named the Prime Minister after HDZ won in the elections. He was elected as the Croatian member of the Yugoslav Federal Presidency where he served first as Vice President and then in 1991 as the last President of SFR Yugoslavia.
After Yugoslavia disintegrated, Mesić served as President of the Croatian Parliament from 1992 to 1994, when he left HDZ over disagreements about Croatian policy in Bosnia and Herzegovina. With several other members of parliament, he formed a new party - Croatian Independent Democrats (HND). In 1997 the majority of HND members, including Mesić, merged into the Croatian People's Party (HNS).
After Franjo Tuđman died in December 1999, he was elected in two rounds the President of the Republic of Croatia in February 2000. He was re-elected in January 2005 for a second term. As an opposition of Tuđman's personality, relaxed and charming Mesić has many times been voted as the most popular politician in Croatia.[4][5][6][7]
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Stjepan, commonly shortened to Stipe, was born in Orahovica, Kingdom of Yugoslavia to Josip and Magdalena "Mandica" Mesić. After his mother died in 1936, his older sister was sent to their uncle in France, while Stjepan was put in the care of his grandmother Marija until his father was remarried (to Mileva Jović).
The Mesić family spent most of the Second World War in refuges in Mount Papuk and Orahovica when it was occasionally liberated. In 1945, the family took refuge from the final fighting of the war in Hungary, along with 10,000 other refugees, and subsequently settled in Našice, where Josip Mesić became the chairman of the District council. The family soon moved to Osijek, where Stipe graduated from 4-year elementary school and finished two years of 8-year gymnasium. In 1949, his father was reassigned back to Orahovica, and Stipe continued his education at the gymnasium in Požega. He graduated in 1955 and, as an exemplary student, was admitted to the League of Communists of Yugoslavia.
He continued his studies at the Law Faculty at the University of Zagreb, where he graduated in 1961. Also in 1961, Mesić married Milka Dudundić, of Ukrainian[8] and Serbian[9] ethnic origin from Hrvatska Kostajnica, with whom he has two daughters. After graduation, he worked as an intern at the municipal court in Orahovica and the public attorney's office at Našice. He served his compulsory military service in Bileća and Niš, becoming a reserve officer.
After passing the judicial examination, he was appointed a municipal judge, but soon became embroiled in a scandal when he publicly denounced local politicians for using official vehicles for private purposes. He was nearly expelled from the party over the incident and in 1964 he moved to Zagreb to work as a manager for the company "Univerzal".
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 Parliament of SR Croatia.
As mayor, Mesić attempted the building of a private factory in the town, the first private factory in Yugoslavia. However, this was personally denounced by Yugoslav president Josip Broz Tito as an attempt to silently introduce capitalism, which was illegal according to the then-current constitution.
In 1967, when a group of Croatian intellectuals published the now-famous "Declaration" about the Croatian language, Mesić publicly denounced it as a diversionary attack against the very foundations of Yugoslavia and called for its authors to be prosecuted by law. However, in the 1970s, Mesić supported the nationalist Croatian Spring movement which called for Croatian equality within the Yugoslav Federation on economic, political and cultural level. The government indicted him for "acts of enemy propaganda". The initial trial lasted three days in which 55 witnesses testified, only five against him, but he was sentenced to 20 years in jail on charges that he was a member of Croatian terrorist group[10]. He appealed and the trial was prolonged, but eventually in 1975 he was incarcerated for one year, and served his sentence at the Stara Gradiška prison.
He was elected again in 1990 as a candidate of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) in the first multi-party elections in Croatia after World War II. He became the general secretary of HDZ and later the Prime Minister of Croatia and served from May until August 1990. He then resigned to take the post 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 on May 15, 1991, the Serbian incumbent Member Borisav Jović demanded, against all constitutional rules, that an election be held. The members from Serbia and its provinces voted against, and the member from Montenegro abstained, leaving Mesić one vote short of majority.[11] Under pressure from the international community after the Ten-Day War in Slovenia, Mesić was eventually appointed.[12]
When Croatia declared its complete independence, he returned to Croatia and resigned from the Presidency. In 1992, he was elected to Parliament and became the President of the Parliament.
In 1994, Mesić left the HDZ to form a new party, the Croatian Independent Democrats (Hrvatski Nezavisni Demokrati, HND). He opposed the government policy toward Bosnia and Herzegovina, accusing Franjo Tuđman of agreeing to carve Bosnia and Herzegovina with Slobodan Milošević in the Karađorđevo agreement. He also criticized privatization during war and unresolved privatization criminality as war profiteering.
In 1997, he and the majority of his party merged into the liberal Croatian People's Party (Hrvatska narodna stranka or HNS), where Mesić became an executive vice-president. By this point, Mesić had throughout his career served as a key figure in left-wing, right-wing and liberal political parties.
He was elected President of the Republic of Croatia in the 2000 election after winning the first round and defeating Dražen Budiša of HSLS in the second round. Mesić ran as the joint candidate of the HNS, HSS, LS and IDS. He received 41% of the vote in the first round and 56% in the second round. After becoming president, he stepped down from membership in the HNS.
He heavily criticized former President Franjo Tuđman's policies as nationalistic and authoritarian, lacking a free media and employing bad economics, while Mesić favored a more liberal approach to opening the Croatian economy to foreign investment.
As President, in September 2000 he retired seven Croatian active generals who had written two open letters to the public arguing that the current Government administration "is campaigning to criminalize Homeland War and that the Government is accusing and neglecting the Croatian Army". Mesić held that active duty officers could not write public political letters without approval of their Commander-in-Chief. Opposition parties condemned the President's decision as being a dangerous decision that could harm Croatian national security. Mesić later retired four more generals for similar reasons.
President Mesić is active in foreign policy, promoting Croatia's ambition to become a member of the European Union and NATO. He also initiated mutual apologies for possible war crimes with the President of Serbia and Montenegro. After Constitutional amendments 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.
Mesić testified at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia that implicated the Croatian army in the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The right-wing parts of the Croatian public took issue with this, saying that his testimony contained untrue statements and questioned his motives (he was often branded "traitor"), and noting that much of his testimony occurred before his presidency, as an opposition politician.
He opposed the U.S.'s military campaign against Iraq and Saddam Hussein's regime without United Nations approval and mandate. Immediately after U.S. attacked Iraq on 20 March 2003, Mesić accused U.S. that by attacking Iraq they marginalise UN, induces divisions in EU, cools down relationships with their allies, disturbs foundations of international order and induces crisis which could spill over borders of Iraq.[13]
Mesić improved Croatian foreign relations with Libya by exchanging visits with the Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi, contrary to the wishes of U.S. and British diplomacy.[14]
The first Mesić mandate was not marked with historically crucial events such as the Tuđman presidency, and the Croatian public shifted in political orientation (HDZ partly lost in popularity, mostly to leftist parties).
When the Government changed hands in late 2003, problems were expected between the leftist President and a Government with rightist members, but Mesić handled the situation gracefully and there were few notable problems in this regard.
He served his first 5-year term until February 2005. In the 2005 election, Mesić was a candidate supported by eight political parties and won almost one half of votes, but was denied the absolute majority by a few percent. Mesić faced off with Jadranka Kosor in the second round of the elections and won. He served his second 5-year term until 2010 when he was replaced by Ivo Josipović.
In December 2006, a controversy arose when a video was published which showed Mesić during a speech in Australia in the early 1990s, where he said that the Croats "won a victory on April 10th" (when the fascist Independent State of Croatia was formed) "as well as in 1945" (when the anti-fascists prevailed and the Socialist Republic of Croatia was formed), as well as that Croatia needs to apologize to no one for the Jasenovac concentration camp (i.e. the WWII Holocaust against Serbs and Jews).[15]
Mesić sparked controversy on the issue of the Independent State of Croatia on another occasion during a speech in which he claimed that not all Croats fighting for the Independent State of Croatia were Ustase supporters and claims that in fact most were fighting legitimately for Croatian independence.[16]
On 1 March 2006 the Civic Assembly of Podgorica, Montenegro's capital, brought a decision to declare Stjepan honorary townsman. The decision has been heavily criticized and caused a huge amount of controversy in Montenegro.
On 21 December 2008, President Mesic compared Dodik's policy to that of the late Serbian President Slobodan Milošević at the beginning of the 1990s. "Just as the world failed to recognize Milosevic's policy then, it does not recognize Dodik's policy today," he said. Explaining where such a policy could lead, he added: "If Dodik manages to merge Republika Srpska with Serbia, all Croats concentrated in Herzegovina will want to join Croatia in the same way, and a small Bosniak country would remain, surrounded by enemies. If this were to happen, this small country would become the refuge of all the world's terrorists."[17]
Mesić has been accused by the Croatian Helsinki Committee of obstructing the investigation of war crimes committed by the Yugoslav Partisans during World War II.[18] The Committee has also accused Mesić of using the commemmorations at the Jasenovac concentration camp for political purposes.[19]
In 2009, he publicly stated that all crucifixes should be removed from Croatian state offices, which caused a negative reaction from the Catholic Church in Croatia.[20]
In 2006, Mesić told the Croatian press that Croatian-French lawyer Ivan Jurasinović should visit the psychiatric clinic at Vrapče, after Jurasinović filed charges for Marin Tomulić against Marko Nikolić and others for attempted murder. Jurasinović subsequently launched a civil suit against Mesić which found the president guilty of using his position to attempt to discredit and slander him. Mesić was ordered to compensate Jurasinović 70,000 kuna.[21]
In April, 2008 Josip Kokić petitioned the Croatian Constitutional Court to remove the president's legal immunity, so that he could sue him. The court decided against removing the immunity.[22] Ivan Jurasinović launched another appeal to remove the immunity in November, 2008.[23]
In 2008, former Constitutional Court judge Vice Vukojević launched a case against Mesić, alleging that he embezzled money along with Vladimir Sokolić under the guise of purchasing vehicles for the Croatian Army in 1993.[24]
| “ | If the current division of Bosnia Herzegovina into two entities does not function, it will not function with divisions into three entities.[26] | ” |
| “ | Milosevic was convinced that he could create Greater Serbia on the ruins of Yugoslavia, which is why he entered the war adventure that left thousands and thousands dead, a destroyed economy, infrastructure, homes, cities and villages. That politics did not succeed. Dodik, basically, wants to achieve Milosevic’s aims, but not with artillery, but thinks that some sort of politics will lead to people saying: okay, let them break away, let them link with Serbia. That cannot pass.[27] | ” |
| “ | An excellent question. I will explain what this was about. The Croatian parliament [had] elected me to be the Croatian member of the Presidency of Yugoslavia. I went to Belgrade, where first, for several months, I was not allowed to take up my duties because the Federal Assembly was unable to meet. After that, the Serbian bloc boycotted my election as president under... Finally, under pressure from the international community, I was elected president. Croatia adopted a decision on its independence. Croatia, in agreement with the international community, postponed its secession from Yugoslavia by three months. This time period had elapsed. Yugoslavia no longer existed. The federal institutions were no longer functioning. I returned to Zagreb, and that's precisely what I said. Because I [had not gone] to Belgrade to open up a house-painting business. I went there as a member of the Presidency of Yugoslavia. Since Yugoslavia no longer existed and the Presidency no longer existed, I had performed the tasks entrusted to me by the Croatian parliament and was reporting back, ready to take up a different office. What was I to do in Belgrade when the Presidency no longer existed?... The accused is a lawyer. He understands very well what I'm talking about. My 'task' was to represent Croatia in the Federal Presidency.[28] | ” |
| “ | The foundation of our independent and sovereign countries was laid here, therefore it would be good if the schoolchildren from all over our former state came to Jajce to have a look at the place of formation of their present statehood.[29] | ” |
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Antun Milanović as President of the Executive Council |
Prime Minister of Croatia 1990 |
Succeeded by Josip Manolić |
| Preceded by Sejdo Bajramović Acting |
President of the Presidency of SFR Yugoslavia 1991 |
Succeeded by Branko Kostić Acting |
| Preceded by Žarko Domljan |
Speaker of Parliament 1992–1994 |
Succeeded by Nedjeljko Mihanović |
| Preceded by Zlatko Tomčić Acting |
President of Croatia 2000–2010 |
Succeeded by Ivo Josipović |
| Diplomatic posts | ||
| Preceded by Sejdo Bajramović |
Secretary General of Non-Aligned Movement 1991 |
Succeeded by Branko Kostić |
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