Stipe Mesić

Biography

Stjepan "Stipe" Mesić (pronounced [stjêpan stǐːpe měːsit͡ɕ]; born 24 December 1934) is a Croatian lawyer and politician who served as the president of Croatia from 2000 to 2010. Before serving two five-year terms as president, he was prime minister of SR Croatia (1990) after the first multi-party elections, the last president of the Presidency of Yugoslavia (1991) and consequently secretary general of the Non-Aligned Movement (1991), as well as the speaker of the Croatian Parliament (1992–1994), and mayor of his hometown of Orahovica.

Mesić was a deputy in the Croatian Parliament in the 1960s, and was then absent from politics until 1990 when he joined the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), a...