Croatian People's Party – Liberal Democrats

Croatian People's Party - Liberal Democrats Hrvatska narodna stranka - Liberalni demokrati
President	Ivan Vrdoljak
Secretary-General	Srećko Ferenčak
Vice Presidents	Srđan Gjurković
Founder	Savka Dabčević-Kučar
Founded	13 October 1990 (1990-10-13)
Headquarters	Zagreb, Croatia
Membership (2017)	39,867[1]
Ideology	Liberalism[2][3] Social liberalism[2] Pro-Europeanism[3]
Political position	Centre[3] to centre-left
National affiliation	People's Coalition (2010–2017)
European affiliation	Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe
International affiliation	None
European Parliament group	Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe
Colors	Gold, Orange
Sabor	4 / 151
European Parliament	0 / 11
County Prefects	1 / 21
Mayors	5 / 128
Website
Official website
Politics of Croatia Political parties Elections

The Croatian People's Party – Liberal Democrats (Croatian: Hrvatska narodna stranka – Liberalni demokrati or HNS – LD) is a liberal^[2][3] political party in Croatia.

As of April 2015 HNS forms a parliamentary club with 5 members in the Croatian Parliament, making them the fourth largest party in Croatia in terms of parliament representation.^[4] HNS is an observing member of the Liberal International and a full member of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party. Since 17 December 2017 the party's leader is Ivan Vrdoljak.

Origins

The People's Party in Croatia was originally formed in 1841, during the period of Croatian romantic nationalism. The Croatian People's Party describes the events of the Illyrian movement since 1835 as its history.^[5]. After 1861 the People's Party was known as the People's Liberal Party, its main splinter party was the Independent People's Party (1880–1903) which became more pro-autonomist, while the "old" People's Party developed into "party of the Settlement" having collaborated with the pro-Hungarian Unionist Party (known as the People's Constitutional Party). The Progressive Party (1904–1906) and the Croatian People's Progressive Party (1906–1910) were also liberal parties in the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia as an autonomous part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

In 1860 the national liberals formed in the Dalmatia (Austrian part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire) the National party known also as the People's Party in Dalmatia. The party developed into a conservative party around 1889 (the National Croatian Party).

In the first Yugoslavia (1918–1941), main liberal party was the Independent Democratic Party composed by the Serbs from former Austro-Hungarian parts of the new state and Slovene centralist liberals.

During Communism in the second Yugoslavia (the Socialist Republic of Croatia, SRH), the liberal leaders of the League of Communists of Croatia were Savka Dabčević-Kučar and Miko Tripalo, who participated in the Croatian Spring of 1971.

Modern party

The modern Croatian People's Party was formed in late 1990 by members of the Coalition of People's Accord (Croatian: Koalicija narodnog sporazuma) which had participated on the first multi-party election of 1990, led by Savka Dabčević-Kučar, Miko Tripalo, Dragutin Haramija and others.

The HNS remained a small opposition party. In the 1992 election they won 6.7% of the vote and attained 6 seats in the Croatian Parliament. In 1994, construction entrepreneur Radimir Čačić became party chairman. In the 1995 election they won 2 seats as part of an election alliance.

In the January 2000 election they formed a four-party coalition with HSS, LS and IDS, which together won 25 seats in the Parliament, two of whom were HNS representatives. As a result, the party participated in the 2000–2003 government of Ivica Račan through the minister of public works, construction and reconstruction Radimir Čačić. A few weeks later, the coalition's candidate and HNS member Stjepan Mesić was elected President of the Republic.

Also in 2000, HNS elected a new party chair, Zagreb University professor of sociology of politics Vesna Pusić.

In the November 2003 elections, their alliance with the Alliance of Primorje-Gorski Kotar and the Slavonia-Baranja Croatian Party won 8% of the vote and 11 out of 151 seats, 10 of them HNS representatives. However, despite significantly improved results, the party moved to the opposition.

A second element of today's People's Party, the Party of Liberal Democrats or Libra, originated in time of the Račan government when in 2002 Dražen Budiša, the leader of the Croatian Social Liberal Party (HSLS), pulled out of the coalition. Ten members of parliament from Budiša's party, led by Jozo Radoš, refused to bring down the government and instead split from the HSLS, forming Libra, the Party of Liberal Democrats. That party won 3 seats in the 2003 election. On 6 February 2005, most of the 1,250 representatives of HNS on its seventh convention voted to merge with Libra as the Croatian People's Party – Liberal Democrats. The total number of parliamentary seats for the party increased to 13.

In the November 2007 elections the party ran on its own and got around 7% of the vote and 7 seats in the Croatian Sabor. It remained in the opposition. Since then, two representatives in Sabor, Dragutin Lesar and Zlatko Horvat, left the party.

In April 2008 Radimir Čačić was elected as party chair after defeating Dragutin Lesar, and then again in March 2012. Vesna Pusić was elected as party president in 2013 and Ivan Vrdoljak in 2016.

On 21 September 2014 about 200 members from HNS Zagreb and Varaždin branches each left the party in order to form liberal and centrist People's Party - Reformists under Radimir Čačić's leadership, while in June 2017 left of the centre Civic Liberal Alliance was created from the minority of the party (including four MPs and one MEP - Jozo Radoš) who were dissatisfied with HNS entering a coalition with the conservative Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) (Cabinet of Andrej Plenković since 9 June 2017).

Chairpersons of the party

Election history

Legislative

The following is a summary of the party's results in legislative elections for the Croatian parliament. The "Total votes" and "Percentage" columns include sums of votes won by pre-election coalitions HNS had been part of. After preferential votes were added to the electoral system, the votes column also includes the statistic of the total number of such votes received by candidates of HNS on coalition lists. The "Total seats" column includes sums of seats won by HNS in election constituencies plus representatives of ethnic minorities affiliated with HNS.

Election	In coalition with	Votes won	Percentage	Seats won	Change	Government
		(Coalition totals)		(HNS only)
1992 (August)	None	176,214	6.67	6 / 138		Opposition
1995 (October)	HSS–IDS–HKDU–SBHS	441,390	18.26	2 / 127	4	Opposition
2000 (January)	HSS–IDS–LS–ASH	432,527	14.70	2 / 151		Government
2003 (November)	PGS–SBHS	198,781	8.00	10 / 151	8	Opposition
2007 (November)	None	168,440	6.80	7 / 153	3	Opposition
2011 (December)	SDP–IDS–HSU	958,312	40.00	14 / 151	7	Government
2015 (November)	SDP–HSU–HL–AHSS–ZS	744,507 (84,002[6])	32.31	9 / 151	5	Opposition
2016 (September)	SDP–HSU–HSS	636,960[7] (84,581)[8]	33.47	9 / 151		Opposition (until June 2017)
						Government (since June 2017)

European Parliament

Election	In coalition with	Votes won (Coalition totals)	Percentage	Total seats won (HNS only)	Change
April 2013	SDP–HSU	237,778	32,07%	0 / 12
May 2014	SDP–HSU-IDS-SDSS	275,904	29,93%	1 / 11	1

See also

• List of political parties in Croatia
• Liberalism
• Contributions to liberal theory
• Liberalism worldwide
• List of liberal parties
• Liberal democracy
• Liberalism in Croatia

References

External links

• Official website (in Croatian)