ZAGREB, May 30, 2020 – In 2020, after almost two decades, Croatia again celebrates Statehood Day on May 30, as it had done in the first decade of its existence.
This year Statehood Day is celebrated on the 30th anniversary of the inauguration of the first multi-party parliament on 30 May 1990, when the foundations of the modern Croatian Parliament were laid and its historic role in preserving Croatian statehood was confirmed after decades of the Communist rule.
Until last year, May 30 was observed as the Day of the Croatian Parliament, a memorial day and a working day, while Statehood Day was celebrated on June 25 as a public holiday and nonworking day.
Since 2001, when the SDP-led coalition government changed the public holiday calendar, all governments endeavored to appropriately observe the new dates, however, ordinary citizens never embraced the new holidays in the same way Statehood Day was celebrated on May 30 during the 1990s.
That was one of the arguments for the HDZ majority to reinstate May 30 as Statehood Day when it arranged the new public holiday calendar last year.
The controversy regarding the ‘real’ date for celebrating Statehood Day will certainly last, however, it is indisputable that a large number of citizens remember 30 May 1990 very fondly, describing it with words such as ‘special’, ‘festive’, and ‘exciting’.
The assembly hall was too small for all the members of parliament and guests on 30 May thirty years ago. In the first part of the session the Election and Appointment Commission was elected, led by Ivan Milas, at whose proposal the leadership of the first multi-party parliament was elected. Zarko Domjan was elected the first parliament speaker.
Stipe Mesic was elected the head of the Executive Committee of the Croatian Parliament, and Franjo Tudjman was elected Chairman of the Socialist Republic of Croatia’s Presidency. On that occasion, he gave a speech, emphasising that throughout its long history, “the Croatian state parliament was the guardian of the sovereignty (with the exception of the period from 1918 to 1941) of the Croatian people in relation to other national and state unions.”
Tudjman said that he had had no doubt that the Croatian people would show their maturity at the first democratic election, “in which the parliament originated”, expressing his conviction that “under the guidance of their true leadership, the people will know and be able to build a life worthy of free people in their only, long-suffering and holy homeland”.
The first Croatian parliament assembly had 351 members of parliament and was tricameral. The Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) had the majority of seats, 207, the League of the Communists of Croatia – the Party for Democratic Changes had 107, the Coalition of People’s Accord had 21, and the Serb Democratic Party had five, while 13 seats were won by independent members and members representing ethnic minorities.
The 1990’s tricameral parliament operated for around two years, and in August 1992, a parliamentary election was held for the new unicameral Croatian Parliament with a significantly smaller number of members – 138.
Regardless of the shortness of its term, and considering the fact that it served a part of it in circumstances of war, the first Croatian Parliament adopted historic decisions on Croatia’s sovereignty and independence, the decision on severing state and legal ties with the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY), and it also passed the “Christmas Constitution”.
