Mesic, Stipe

▪ 2001

      The election of Stipe Mesic as president of the Republic of Croatia on Feb. 7, 2000, was a turning point for the country, which had been run on a very tight rein by Pres. Franjo Tudjman since independence in 1991. Mesic's political biography was characterized by dramatic falls from political privilege and uncanny reemergence to public prominence, capped by his unexpected election as president following Tudjman's death in late 1999. Croatia, which had been something of an international pariah state, seemed on the brink of a new era.

      Mesic was born Stjepan Mesic into a World War II partisan family in the small town of Orahovica, Croatia (Kingdom of Yugoslavia), on Dec. 24, 1934. He earned a degree in law from the University of Zagreb, after which he returned to his hometown in eastern Croatia and served as mayor. In 1971, however, the Yugoslav communist authorities jailed him as a counterrevolutionary for supporting the “Croatian Spring,” a liberal nationalist awakening. He spent a year in the harsh Croatian Stara Gradiska political prison camp. Afterward, as a political outcast, Mesic continued to suffer personal difficulties and focused his energies on serving as general manager of a small architectural firm in Zagreb.

      In 1989 he again became active in oppositionist politics, joining Tudjman and other antiregime dissidents, and became secretary of the new pro-independence and nationalist Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), which won power the following year. Mesic was appointed president of the new government and represented Croatia at the federal Yugoslav level, having the distinction of serving as the last president of the large Yugoslav Federation. He resigned on Dec. 5, 1991, following attacks on Croatia by the Serb-dominated Yugoslav armed forces. Upon the creation of an independent Croatian state, Mesic became president of the parliament.

      By 1994 Mesic had broken with Tudjman over the issue of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Thus, he began another period of political wandering. He failed in an attempt to forge a new party among HDZ dissidents, and in 1997 he joined the small Croatian National Party (HNS) and soon became its vice president. In 1999 the HNS joined other opposition parties to contest parliamentary elections that resulted in the HDZ's defeat. In the presidential elections called after Tudjman's death, Mesic (who had failed to win his own parliamentary seat) ran an antiestablishment campaign and won a 56–44% victory over the Croatian Social-Liberal Party–Social Democratic Party coalition candidate in the second round of balloting. His folksy and populist campaign, as well as his well-honed political instincts, struck a chord with an electorate tired of government corruption and abuse of authority.

      Facing a fractious six-party coalition government, President Mesic promised to reduce the powers of the presidency, scale back the intelligence services, reform a corrupt privatization process, restore friendly ties with Croatia's neighbours, and integrate Croatia into NATO and European institutions.

Max Primorac

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