Mesić was a deputy in the Croatian Parliament in the 1960s, and was then absent from politics until 1990 when he joined theCroatian Democratic Union (HDZ), and was named President of the Executive Council (Prime Minister) of the Socialist Republic of Croatia (then still a constituent republic of the SFR Yugoslavia) after HDZ won the elections. His cabinet is, despite holding office before Croatia's independence, considered by theGovernment of Croatia to have been the first government cabinet of the current Croatian republic. He later resigned from his post and was appointed to serve as the Socialist Republic of Croatia's membership of theYugoslav federal presidency where he served first as vice president and then in 1991 as the lastPresident of Yugoslavia before Yugoslavia dissolved.
AfterFranjo Tuđman died in December 1999, Mesić won theelections to become the next president of Croatia in February 2000. He was the last Croatian president to serve under a strongsemi-presidential system, which foresaw the president as the most powerful official in the government structure and allowed him to appoint and dismiss thePrime Minister and his cabinet. This system was abolished in favor of an incompleteparliamentary system, which retained the direct election of the president but greatly reduced his powers in favor of strengthening the office of Prime Minister. He wasreelected in January 2005 for a second five-year term. Mesić always topped the polls for the most popular politician in Croatia during his two terms.[3][4][5][6]
Stjepan Mesić, commonly called "Stipe", was born inOrahovica,Yugoslavia (modern dayCroatia) to Josip and Magdalena (née Pernar) Mesić. After his mother died in 1936, his older sister Marija was sent to their uncle Tomo Pernar in France, while Stjepan was put in the care of his grandmother Marija until his father was remarried in 1938 to Mileva Jović, anethnic Serb who gave birth to Slavko and Jelica.[7]
His father joined theYugoslav Partisans in 1941. The Mesić family spent most of theSecond World War in refuges in MountPapuk 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 inNašice, where Josip Mesić became the chairman of the District Council. The family soon moved toOsijek, where Stipe graduated from 4-year elementary school and finished two years of 8-yeargymnasium.
In 1949, his father was reassigned back to Orahovica, and Stipe continued his education at the gymnasium inPožega. He graduated in 1955 and, as an exemplary student, was admitted to theLeague of Communists of Yugoslavia. The same year on 17 March, his father died of cancer.[citation needed]
Stjepan Mesić continued his studies at the Law Faculty at theUniversity of Zagreb, where he graduated in 1961. That same year, Mesić married Milka Dudunić, ofUkrainian[8] andSerbian[9] ethnic origin fromHrvatska 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 atNašice. He served his compulsory military service inBileća andNiš, becoming a reserve officer.[citation needed]
In 1966, Mesić ran as an independent candidate in the election for his municipal council, and defeated two other candidates. In 1967, he became the mayor of Orahovica and a member of theParliament of SR Croatia.[10]
In 1967, as mayor, Mesić attempted the building of a private factory in the town, the first private factory inYugoslavia. However, this was personally denounced by Yugoslav presidentJosip Broz Tito as an attempt to silently introducecapitalism, which was illegal under the then-existing constitution.[11]
However, in the 1970s Mesić supported the reformistCroatian Spring movement which called for Croatian equality within the Yugoslav Federation on economic, political and cultural levels. 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 a Croatian terrorist group.[13] He appealed and the trial was prolonged, but in 1975 he was incarcerated for one year and served his sentence at theStara Gradiška prison.[14]
Presidents rotated annually among the six republics of Yugoslavia. When Mesić's turn came to become president on 15 May 1991, theSerbian incumbent MemberBorisav Jović demanded, against all constitutional rules, that an election be held. The members from Serbia and its provinces voted against, and the member fromMontenegro abstained, leaving Mesić one vote short of the majority.[16] Under pressure from the international community after theTen-Day War in Slovenia, Mesić was appointed on 1 July 1991.[17]
Despite being the head of state of the SFRY, Mesić did not attend many sessions of the collective presidency as it was dominated by four members loyal to Serbia. He was also unable to re-assert control as commander-in-chief of theYugoslav People's Army, as his orders for them to return to barracks were ignored and they acted independently. On 5 December 1991, Mesić declared his post irrelevant and resigned from the Presidency, returning toCroatia. In a statement to Croatian Parliament, he said: "I think I've accomplished my duty, Yugoslavia no longer exist[s] anymore".[19]
Earlier, in 1992, Mesić visitedŠiroki Brijeg in order to dismissStjepan Kljujić and installMate Boban as the president ofHDZ BiH, the party's branch in Bosnia and Herzegovina.[21] Mesić later described Boban as a radical nationalist and even "crazy".[22]
He heavily criticized former PresidentFranjo 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. In September 2000 Mesić retired seven Croatian active generals who had written twoopen 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".[26] Mesić held that active duty officers could not write public political letters without approval of theirCommander-in-Chief. Opposition parties condemned this as a dangerous decision that could harm Croatian national security. Mesić later retired four more generals for similar reasons.[26]
As president, Mesić was active in foreign policy.[27] Mesić promoted Croatia's ambition to become a member of theEuropean Union andNATO.[28] He also initiated mutual apologies for possible war crimes with thePresident of Serbia and Montenegro.[29] After Constitutional amendments in September 2000, he was deprived of most of his roles in domestic policy-making, which instead passed wholly to theCroatian Government and itsPremier.[citation needed]
Mesić testified at theInternational Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia that implicated the Croatian army in the war inBosnia 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. His denunciation of the assassination ofSerbian Prime MinisterZoran Djindjic on 12 March 2003 marked a notable thawing of relations with Serbia, and he attended his funeral in Belgrade.[30]
He opposed the United States' military campaign againstIraq andSaddam Hussein's regime without gainingUnited Nations approval or mandate beforehand. Immediately following the invasion of Iraq on 20 March 2003, Mesić deplored that by attacking Iraq, the Bush administration had marginalized UN, induced divisions inEU, damaged relationships with traditional allies, disturbed the foundations of international order and incited a crisis, which could spill over the borders of Iraq.[31]
Mesić improved Croatian foreign relations withLibya by exchanging visits with the Libyan leaderMuammar al-Gaddafi, contrary to the wishes of U.S. and British diplomacy.[32]
The first of Mesić's mandate was not marked with historically crucial events like the Tuđman presidency had been, Croatia's public political orientation shifted away from the HDZ, mostly to the benefit of 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 incidents in this regard.[citation needed] He served his first 5-year term until February 2005. In the2005 election, Mesić was a candidate supported by eight political parties and won nearly half of the vote, but was denied the absolute majority by a few percent. Mesić faced off withJadranka Kosor in the run-off election and won. He served his second 5-year term until 2010 when he was superseded byIvo Josipović.[citation needed]
On 1 March 2006 the Civic Assembly ofPodgorica,Montenegro's capital, decided to declare Mesić an honorary citizen. The move was opposed by pro-Serbian parties in Montenegro.[33]
In December 2006, a controversy arose when a video was published showing 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 alignedIndependent State of Croatia was formed) "as well as in 1945" (when the communist anti-fascists prevailed and theSocialist Republic of Croatia was formed), as well as that Croatia needed to apologize to no one for theJasenovac concentration camp.[34] Another 1990s-era speech by Mesić sparked controversy on the issue, where he claimed that not all Croats fighting for the Independent State of Croatia were Ustashe supporters and claimed that most were fighting legitimately for Croatian independence.[35] However, in the 2000s Mesić clearly described thepersecutions of Serbs inIndependent State of Croatia asgenocide.[36][37] In 2017, another recording from 1992 was published, with Mesić talking how Jasenovac wasn't a "death camp", denying the nature of the concentration camp, and other statements considered supportive of the Ustaše.[38] The same year, Mesić apologized for "the imprudent statement" and relativization of the crimes in Jasenovac.[39]
On 21 December 2008, President Mesić comparedDodik's policies to those of the late Serbian PresidentSlobodan Milošević at the beginning of the 1990s. "Just as the world failed to recognize Milošević's policy then, it does not recognize Dodik's policy today," he said. Explaining where such a policy could be headed, he added: "If Dodik manages to mergeRepublika Srpska withSerbia, allCroats concentrated inHerzegovina will want to joinCroatia in the same manner, leaving a rumpBosniak country, surrounded by enemies. If this were to occur, that small country would become the refuge of all the world's terrorists."[40]
Mesić has been accused by theCroatian Helsinki Committee of obstructing the investigation of war crimes committed by theYugoslav Partisans duringWorld War II.[41] The committee also accused Mesić of abusing the commemorations at the Jasenovac concentration camp for political purposes.[42]
In 2009, he publicly proposed that all crucifixes be removed from Croatian state offices, provoking a negative reaction from the Catholic Church in Croatia.[43]
In 2006, Mesić told the Croatian press that Croatian-French lawyer Ivan Jurasinović should visit the psychiatric clinic atVrapče, after Jurasinović filed charges for Marin Tomulić against Marko Nikolić and others for attempted murder.[? clarification needed] 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 70,000kunas.[44]
In April 2008 Josip Kokić unsuccessfully petitioned theCroatian Constitutional Court to remove the president's legal immunity, so that he could sue him.[45] Ivan Jurasinović launched another appeal to remove the immunity in November 2008.[46]
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.[47]
Political scientist and publisher Darko Petričić claimed that Mesić's first campaign in 2000 was funded by theAlbanian mafia. In 2009 Mesić filed a lawsuit fordefamation but it was decided in Petričić's favor on 29 March 2012.[48][49]
In 2015, a court inHämeenlinna,Finland, sentenced two executives of Finnish companyPatria – executive vice president for Croatia Heiki Hulkonen and representative for Croatia Reiji Niittynen – for bribing Croatian officials in making a €112 million contract with Croatian companyĐuro Đaković. Each received a suspended sentence of eight years, eight months in prison and a €300,000 fine. Director of sales, Tuomas Korpi, was acquitted.[50] According to the charge, Patria's managers gained €1.6 million through Hans Wolfgang Riedl and Walter Wolf as mediators, and used this money to bribe Croatia's president Mesić and director of the Đuro Đaković company Bartol Jerković.[50]
Political activities after the end of the presidential mandate
Former Croatian President Mesić, together with former President ofMontenegroVujanovic, former President ofSloveniaTurk, former President ofAlbaniaMoisiu, former President ofSerbiaMicic and other politicians from the region, founded the "Podgorica Club" inPodgorica, Montenegro at the beginning of 2019.[51][52] The Podgorica club is a political initiative of former presidents and prime ministers from the region.[51][52]
^"Anfragebeantwortung" [Reply to a parliamentary question about the Decoration of Honour](PDF) (in German). p. 1446. Retrieved9 April 2017.
^Slovak republic website, State honours : 1st Class in 2001 (click on "Holders of the Order of the 1st Class White Double Cross" to see the holders' table)
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