Dražen Budiša

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Dražen Budiša (born July 25, 1948 in Drniš, Croatia) is a Croatian politician who used to be leading opposition figure in the early 1990s.

Budiša was one of the radical student leaders during the Croatian Spring in the 1970s. For his activities he was later sent to prison by Communist authorities. Before the arrival of democracy he worked as a librarian.

In 1989 he was one of the founders of Croatian Social Liberal Party and later its leader. During 1990 elections his party joined Coalition of People's Accord and fared badly, including Budiša who failed to win a seat.

In August 1991, during the war, Budiša became a minister in war-time cabinet of Franjo Gregurić. In February 1992 he was the first minister to break ranks, being opposed to the constitutional laws guaranteeing political autonomy of ethnic Serbs in exchange for their formal recognition of Croatian sovereignty. He announced his decision to resign during televised session of Croatian Parliament and thus became rallying point for many Croatians dissatisfied with the policies of Franjo Tuđman.

Although he lost Croatian presidential election of 1992 to Franjo Tuđman, he confirmed his status of opposition leader, beating many other, presumably more charismatic leaders like Savka Dabčević-Kučar and Dobroslav Paraga. His HSLS party also fared relatively well at those elections and later had even better results few months later on Chamber of Counties, regional and local elections, when HSLS reached its zenith.

This rise of HSLS proved to be short-lived. On the 1995 parliamentary elections many of its voters switched to rejuvenated Social Democratic Party of Croatia and two years later those trends continued on local elections. Budiša reacted by floating plans for coalition governmnent with Croatian Democratic Union, hoping to attract their voters. This led to a split with Vladimir Gotovac and creation of Liberal Party.

After that Budiša finally realised that the only way to get power lies in broad coalition of all opposition parties, including SDP. He and Ivica Račan signed the coalition agreement in 1998 and convincingly won 2000 parliamentary election.

This triumph was marred by Budiša losing to Stjepan Mesić on the presidential elections held two weeks later. Budiša, who tried to woo followers of Franjo Tuđman during the second round, was embittered by this defeat and this led to his party turning increasingly right-wing and later squabbles with his government coalition partners.

One of the points on which Budiša clashed with Mesić (and later Račan) was cooperation with ICTY. All this escalated in 2002 when Budiša left government in an unsuccessful bid to force new elections. The ultimate result was yet another fragmentation of his party and the formation of the Party of Liberal Democrats.

Back in opposition, Budiša tried to return to power by forming centre-right bloc together with Democratic Centre of Mate Granić. On 2003 parliamentary elections two parties fared badly, winning only three seats. Although those three seats later proved crucial in helping Ivo Sanader to form a parliamentary majority, Budiša, like Granić, took responsibility for the disaster and resigned party leadership.