Dražen Budiša

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Dražen Budiša

Dražen Budiša (born July 25, 1948 in Drniš ) is a Croatian politician and writer. In the mid-1990s he was a leading representative of the opposition to Franjo Tuđman and was a minister in Croatia on several occasions.

Budiša studied philosophy and sociology in Zagreb.

Budiša was the student leader (chairman of the Zagreb Student Union) of the Croatian Spring in the 1970s and was imprisoned as the first defendant for four years. Until the democratic awakening in 1989, he was then banned from public activity and worked as a librarian.

During the Croatian war he was minister from August 1991 to February 1992, but was the first to leave the government to run for the presidential election in 1992, but he was defeated by Franjo Tuđman . As chairman, he headed the HSLS party three times from 1990 to 1996, 1997 to 2001 and 2002 to 2004, even when this party was the second most important party in the victorious opposition electoral alliance for the 2000 parliamentary elections. Two weeks later, on February 7, 2000, he lost 44% to 56% in the runoff election for President Stjepan Mesić . He entered the government as a minister and was also briefly deputy prime minister in 2002.

The attitude of his coalition partner SDP, which in his view was too indulgent in foreign policy (extradition of Croatian generals to the ICTY in The Hague, concessions to Slovenia because of the Krško nuclear power plant and border issues) escalated into a government crisis. Then HSLS stepped out of the government coalition. After poor results in subsequent elections, Budiša resigned as chairman of the HSLS.

Since then he has not been involved in active politics.

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personal data
SURNAME Budiša, Dražen
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Croatian politician and writer
DATE OF BIRTH July 25, 1948
PLACE OF BIRTH Drniš