The Croatian Democratic Union (, HDZ) is a major conservative, centre-right to right-wing political party in Croatia. Since 2016, it has been the ruling political party in Croatia under the incumbent Prime Minister Andrej Plenković. It is one of the two major contemporary political parties in Croatia, along with the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SDP). It is currently the largest party in the Sabor with 55 seats. The HDZ governed Croatia from 1990 before the country gained independence from Yugoslavia until 2000 and, in coalition with junior partners, from 2003 to 2011, and since 2016. HDZ is a member of the Centrist Democrat International, International Democracy Union, and the European People's Party, and sits in the European People's Party Group in the European Parliament. HDZ is the first political party in Croatia to be convicted of corruption.IUS-INFO (14 October 2021). The Supreme Court handed down a verdict for Fimi media: Ivo Sanader gets a year in prison less, HDZ's fine of HRK 3.5 million confirmed. "On Wednesday, the Supreme Court partially confirmed the verdict from the repeated proceedings in the Fimi media case, so HDZ will have to pay HRK 3.5 million in fines for extracting money from state institutions and companies, while former Prime Minister Ivo Sanader's sentence was reduced from eight to seven years in prison." Al Jazeera (2021) Can HDZ be called a criminal party in the future? "The Supreme Court of the Republic of Croatia made a decision according to which it partially confirms the verdict from the repeated proceedings in the "Fimi media" case. According to that decision, the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) must return HRK 14.6 million (almost two million euros) and pay a fine of HRK 3.5 million (half a million euros) for withdrawing money from state institutions and companies to the state budget." Slobodna Dalmacija (2020) Constitutional expert: As a political party, the HDZ has been convicted of corrupt acts, but if it were the opposition, I would not be jubilant. It's not over yet... "HDZ is the first party in Croatia to be legally convicted of corruption. This is an act equal to high treason, and the HDZ has thus officially become a criminal organization, claim the opposition after the verdict of the Supreme Court in the "Fimi-media" affair." Index.hr (2020) Today's verdict doesn't say anything we don't already know about HDZ, but it says a lot about the voters. "Here are some more facts: HDZ is responsible for the robbery of our money, for which he was now wrongfully convicted at the repeated trial for the Fimi Media affair and must pay a fine of HRK 3.5 million. Furthermore, the court ruled that the property benefit of HRK 14.7 million obtained through criminal acts should be confiscated from the HDZ. In other words, HDZ has proven to have stolen at least HRK 14.7 million from all of us in this affair alone. The court orders HDZ to pay HRK 10,359 million to the budget within 15 days." BBC (2014) Former Croatia PM Ivo Sanader convicted of corruption. "A court in Croatia has sentenced former PM Ivo Sanader to nine years in prison after convicting him and the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) of corruption."
History Origins
The HDZ was founded on 17 June 1989 by Croatian dissidents led by former major general Franjo Tuđman. It was officially registered on 25 January 1990. The HDZ held its first convention on 24–25 February 1990, when Franjo Tuđman was elected its president. When the party was founded, the government of the Socialist Republic of Croatia had just introduced a multi-party system in Croatia and scheduled elections for the Croatian Parliament.
The HDZ began as a nationalist party but also included former partisans and members of the Communist establishment, such as Josip Manolić and Josip Boljkovac. President Tuđman and other HDZ officials traveled abroad and gathered large financial contributions from Croatian expatriates. On the eve of the 1990 parliamentary elections, the ruling League of Communists of Croatia saw such tendencies within the HDZ as an opportunity to remain in power. At the beginning of democracy the communists called HDZ "the party of dangerous intentions". The HDZ won a majority in the Croatian Parliament, and Croatia (then part of Yugoslavia) became one of the few socialist countries where Communist single party rule was replaced by anti-Communist single party rule. 30 May 1990, the day the HDZ formally took power, was celebrated as Statehood Day.
1990–2000
A presidential election was held in 1992, and Tuđman, who would remain as undisputed party leader until his death in 1999, was elected president.
The party governed Croatia throughout the 1990s and under its leadership, Croatia became independent (1991), was internationally recognized (1992), and consolidated all of its pre-war territory (by 1998). During that period, the HDZ won both the 1992 and 1995 parliamentary elections.
As it strongly advocated Croatian independence, the HDZ was quite unpopular with the Serb minority and others who preferred to see Croatia remain inside the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. This was one of the factors contributing to the creation of the Republic of Serbian Krajina and the subsequent armed conflict in neighboring Bosnia-Herzegovina. The role of the HDZ in those events is matter of controversy, even in Croatia, where some tend to view HDZ policy in the early stages of the conflict as extremist and a contributing factor in the escalation of violence while others (such as Marko Veselica's Croatian Democratic Party) see the HDZ as having appeased Serbia and the Yugoslav People's Army, therefore being responsible for Croatia's unpreparedness for defense. However, the policies of Tuđman and the HDZ shifted according to the circumstances.
Transition to capitalism
The HDZ also began to lead Croatia toward a political and economic transition from socialism to capitalism. Notably, HDZ governments implemented aggressive privatization in the country in a manner considered sub-optimal, and at times illegal, due to the selective nature of the privatizations (see Croatian privatization controversy). According to the HDZ, this process proved a useful distraction from dealing with the baggage of post-World War II communist nationalizations. It was the HDZ in 1992 which enacted into law the right of corporations (the vast majority of which were under state ownership) the right to finally formally register themselves as the owners of nationalized property, thus completing their version of a process of quasi-nationalization started by the communist regime after WWII, in different targeted areas for their gain. Although it was proven that HDZ sold a large number of state companies to people close to their party for greatly reduced prices. Property returned included possessions nationalized from the Catholic Church or widely known individuals such as Gavrilović, the owner of a major meat-producing factory in Petrinja, south of Zagreb.
HDZ after Tuđman's death (2000–2003) The 2000 parliamentary elections were held 3 January, weeks after Tuđman's death. The HDZ was defeated by a centre-left coalition of six opposition parties, led by Ivica Račan's Social Democratic Party (SDP) and Dražen Budiša's Croatian Social Liberal Party (HSLS). The election was seen as a referendum on the HDZ with a poor economy, corruption and crony capitalism being major factors in their ouster.
At the subsequent presidential election, HDZ candidate Mate Granić who was favored to win in the weeks prior to the parliamentary elections, finished third and therefore failed to enter the second round of voting, won by Stipe Mesić.
In the period from 2000 and 2003, several businessmen who became tycoons under the initial HDZ rule were tried and convicted for abuses, though in general the privatization process implemented by the HDZ remained unaltered. This period proved to be a low point for the HDZ; many thought the party could not recover. These people included Mate Granić, who, together with Vesna Škare-Ožbolt, left to form the centre-right Democratic Centre (DC).
When the International Criminal Tribunal (ICTY) began to prosecute Croatian Army commanders, this provoked a major backlash among the Croatian public. As the opposition party, the HDZ supported this popular discontent and actively resisted the transfers of generals to the ICTY. This gradually changed as the HDZ and its new leader Ivo Sanader began to distance themselves from the more extreme rhetoric, becoming perceived as moderates. This tendency continued when the HSLS shifted rightwards, making Sanader's HDZ and HSLS appear as like-oriented parties. This process was completed in 2002 when Ivić Pašalić, leader of the HDZ hardliners and perceived to be associated with the worst excesses of Tuđman's era, challenged Sanader for the party leadership, accusing him of betraying Tuđman's nationalist legacy. At first it looked like Sanader would lose, but with the help of Branimir Glavaš and the tacit support of liberal sections of Croatian public opinion, he won at the party convention. Pašalić then left the HDZ to form the Croatian Bloc party.
First Sanader government (2003–2008)
At the 2003 Croatian parliamentary election, the party won 33.9% of the popular vote and 66 out of 152 seats. Although it failed to win a clear majority in the Croatian Parliament, even with the help of the allied DC and HSLS, it formed a government with the nominally left-wing Independent Democratic Serb Party and the Croatian Party of Pensioners.
With such a broad and diverse mandate, the Sanader-led government vigorously pursued policies that amounted to the implementation of the basic criteria for joining the European Union, such as the return of refugees to their homes, rebuilding houses damaged in the war, improving minority rights, cooperating with the ICTY, and continuing to consolidate the Croatian economy. Despite this, the EU's Council of Ministers postponed Croatia's membership negotiations with the union on the grounds of its non-cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia over the case of indicted general Ante Gotovina.
This setback brought an increase in Eurosceptic views among the Croatian public, which also affected support for the HDZ. Since accession to the EU was a key part of Sanader's reformist course, opposition to his leadership within and outside the HDZ was on the rise. This opposition manifested itself at the 2005 local elections and the defection of Glavaš, who not only successfully challenged Sanader's authority but also managed to nominally deprive Sanader of his parliamentary majority.
Second Sanader government (2008–2009) Despite this defeat, the first Sanader-led government was able to survive until the end of the legislature. The subsequent parliamentary election in late November 2007 saw the HDZ hard-pressed both by the SDP-led leftist coalition and by the extreme right-wing Croatian Party of Rights and Croatian Democratic Assembly of Slavonia and Baranja.
During the electoral campaign, a vigorous and sometimes ruthless reaction from the party and Sanader himself, together with some capital errors from SDP, convinced part of the far-right electorate to support the HDZ to prevent what they perceived as the heirs of the former communist party to return to power. The party won a majority of both seats and votes in the election, and the first session of the newly elected parliament was called for 11 January 2008. However, the SDP repeatedly refused to acknowledge defeat, claiming that they had the most votes if the diaspora ballot was not taken into account. The HDZ gained the support of the "yellow–green coalition" (HSS-HSLS) and of the HSU and national minorities representatives; Sanader formed a second government.