Franjo Tuđman, Democratic Christianity and the Croatian Democratic Union

Abstract

In Croatian public discourse, there exist different interpretations of Franjo Tuđman’s position on Christian democracy and his vision of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ ) as a Christian democratic party. Some of the former officials of HDZ deny that Tuđman was a Christian democrat and that HDZ was a Christian democratic party during the 1990’s. On the other hand, today’s party leadership points out that Tuđman established HDZ on the principles of Christian democracy. By using primary and secondary sources and existing literature, this article examines Franjo Tuđman’s position in regard to the Christian democratic orientation of HDZ and his understanding of Christian democracy. We present Tuđman’s views on the political identity of HDZ and explain the transformation of HDZ into a party with a Christian democratic orientation at the 1993 party congress. An empirical analysis showed that Tuđman did not want HDZ to abandon its trans–ideological and all–Croatian political identity and become an explicitly Christian democratic party, despite the party’s programmatic transition to Christian democratic principles. The analysis also revealed that Tuđman’s understanding of Christian democracy was much closer to the confessional than to the contemporary phase of Christian democracy, although some features indicate that Tuđman endorsed the contemporary form of the Christian democratic ideology.