Croatian Peasant Party

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Croatian Peasant Party




Leader	Josip Friščić

Founded	1989
Headquarters	Zagreb

Political ideology	Conservativism, Christian Democracy
International affiliation	none

Website	Croatian Peasant Party

The Croatian Peasant Party (Croatian: Hrvatska seljačka stranka, HSS) is a conservative political party in Croatia. It was formed in 1905 by Ante Radić along with his brother Stjepan Radić. It became the dominant Croat party in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and is a significant party in Croatia today.

While Croatia was still under Austro-Hungarian rule, the HSS sought for greater autonomy, peasants' rights and land reform. After World War I and the dissolution of Austria-Hungary, the HSS garnered significant popular and electoral support for its advocacy of an independent Croatian state, and its opposition to the creation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes which the party claimed would be dominated by Serbia.

Despite the party's efforts, the kingdom was established, and the HSS became an opposition party in parliament. Although popular among its constituency, the party's weakness was its limited national appeal and its ethnic and economic-based constituency.

The HSS advocated a federal state in which Croatia would be afforded equal status vis-à-vis Serbia, and the party platform still called for greater Croatian autonomy and eventually independence. With that goal in mind, the HSS renamed itself the Croatian Republican Peasant Party until the royal authorities forced the party to remove the word "Republican" in 1925 because of its anti-royalist connotation.

As the opposition, the party's strategy was to boycott parliamentary sessions which not only allowed Serb politicians to further consolidate power, it also created political instability and hostility. In 1928, Puniša Račić, a Serbian ultra-nationalist, was offended by a comment made by HSS deputies during a parliamentary session, shot and mortally wounded Radić and several other HSS deputies on the chamber floor. Soon after the country was renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929 and all political parties were banned.

Some political freedoms were restored in 1931 and the HSS, led by Vladko Maček, once again was in opposition. Maček showed great organisational abilities and political skill, which resulted in HSS gathering support from all classes of Croatian people, as well from followers of almost any ideology. HSS also became umbrella for almost all opposition party in Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Although HSS-led coalition lost 1938 elections, it remained force to be reckoned with and in August 1939 Cvetković-Maček agreement led to creation of semi-autonomous Banovina of Croatia under HSS rule. At the same time, HSS returned to royal government.

The party's fortunes declined precipitously with the outbreak of World War II and the German invasion in April 1941. Some party members were divided among those who sympathized with the Croatian fascist Ustasha independence movement, and those whose left-leaning beliefs led them to join the Partisans. But the vast majority of HSS supporters remained passive and neutral for the duration of the war as the Ustasha, the communist Partisans and the royalist Chetniks fought for control.

After the communist victory, the Communist Party of Yugoslavia established one-party rule — the HSS, along with other political parties were declared illegal. It would take another forty-five years for the HSS to reemerge. During this time, Maček represented the HSS in exile until his death in 1964. Juraj Krnjević took over as leader until his own death 1988, only a year before the HSS could resume its work within Croatia.

With the advent of multi-party system in 1990, the HSS was reconstituted and on the 1990 election won several seats in the Croatian Parliament. They remained in opposition until the 2000 elections when they received three ministerial portfolios as part of their participation in the winning Social Democratic Party of Croatia-led coalition.

Today, the HSS considers itself among other left-wing European political parties that advocate pro-agrarian policies and greater economic interventionism by the state. On social matters the HSS is largely conservative, supporting a Christian-based morality in public life.

At the last elections in November 2003, the party won 7.2 % of the popular vote and 10 out of 151 seats (nine domestic seats and one minority seat).