The
Independent Democratic Party was a social liberal political party in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, and later the
Kingdom of YugoslaviaThe Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a state stretching from the Western Balkans to Central Europe which existed during the often-tumultuous interwar era of 1918–1941...
. It was established by
Svetozar PribićevićSvetozar Pribićević was an ethnic Serb politician from Croatia who worked hard for creation of unitaristic Yugoslavia. However, he later became a bitter opponent of the same policy and of the dictatorship of king Aleksandar Karađorđević...
as a breakaway faction of the
Democratic PartyThe Yugoslav Democratic Party, State Party of Serbian, Croatian and Slovene Democrats and Democratic Party was the name of a series of social-liberal political parties that existed in succession in the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, and the Kingdom...
in 1924. It was formed by three different groups: by far the largest group were the Serbs from the areas of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, that is Croatian, Bosnian and Vojvodina Serbs, with the prevalence of the first. The second most influential group were Slovene centralist liberals. The third, smallest group was composed by
CroatCroats are a South Slavic ethnic group mostly living in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and nearby countries. There are around 4 million Croats living inside Croatia and up to 4.5 million throughout the rest of the world. Responding to political, social and economic pressure, many Croats have...
pro-Yugoslav liberals, mostly from
DalmatiaDalmatia is a historical region on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. It stretches from the island of Rab in the northwest to the Bay of Kotor in the southeast. The hinterland, the Dalmatian Zagora, ranges from fifty kilometers in width in the north to just a few kilometers in the south....
and
ZagrebZagreb is the capital and the largest city of the Republic of Croatia. It is in the northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the Medvednica mountain. Zagreb lies at an elevation of approximately above sea level. According to the last official census, Zagreb's city...
.
In the first three years of its existence, the party supported a strong central Yugoslav government, fiercely opposing the
federalismFederalism is a political concept in which a group of members are bound together by covenant with a governing representative head. The term "federalism" is also used to describe a system of the government in which sovereignty is constitutionally divided between a central governing authority and...
of the
Croatian Peasant PartyThe Croatian Peasant Party is a center and socially conservative political party in Croatia.-Austria-Hungary:The Croatian People's Peasant Party was formed on December 22, 1904 by Antun Radić along with his brother Stjepan Radić. The party contested elections for the first time in the Kingdom of...
, the
Croatian nationalismCroatian nationalism is the nationalism of Croats or of Croatian culture. It arose in the 19th century in response to Magyarization of Croat territories under Hungarian rule, especially under the influence of Ante Starčević and Eugen Kvaternik,...
and the Croatian Party of Rights and the Croatian People's Party,
Greater SerbiaThe term Greater Serbia or Great Serbia applies to the Serbian nationalist and irredentist ideology directed towards the creation of a Serbian land which would incorporate all regions of traditional significance to the Serbian nation...
n hegemonism of the
People's Radical PartyThe People's Radical Party of Serbia was a political party formed on January 8, 1881, which was active in the Kingdom of Serbia and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes...
, and Slovenian and Bosnian quests for territorial autonomy, supported respectively by the
Slovene People's PartyThe Slovene People's Party was a Slovenian political party in the 19th and 20th centuries, active in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Between 1907 and 1941, it was the largest and arguably the most influential political party in the Slovene Lands...
and the
Yugoslav Muslim OrganizationYugoslav Muslim Organization was a Bosnian Muslim political party in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. It was founded in Sarajevo on February 16, 1919 and was led by Mehmed Spaho. In election campaigns the JMO did mobilize on religious slogans rather than Bosnian nationality, calling...
. In 1927, however, they reached an agreement with
Stjepan RadićStjepan Radić was a Croatian politician and the founder of the Croatian Peasant Party in 1905. Radić is credited with galvanizing the peasantry of Croatia into a viable political force...
's Croatian Peasant Party, forming the
Peasant-Democratic Opposition, which demanded a decentralization of Yugoslavia. After the establishment of the royal dictatorship of King Alexander I of Yugoslavia in January 1929, the party was officially dissolved, but continued to function underground, while its president Svetozar Pribićević went into exile. Many of its members joined the officially sponsored regime party
Yugoslav Radical Peasants' DemocracyThe Yugoslav National Party was a political party in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia between 1932 and 1941...
(renamed to Yugoslav National Party in 1933), including the great majority of its Slovenian members.
After Pribićević's death in exile in 1936, the leader of the party became Srđan Budisavljević. After the fall of the regime of the Yugoslav National Party in 1935, the Independent Democratic Party could function legally again, joining the United Opposition led by
Vladko MačekVladko Maček was a Croatian politician active within the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in the first half of the 20th century. He led the Croatian Peasant Party following the assassination of Stjepan Radić, and all through World War II.- Early life :Maček was born to a Slovene-Czech family in the village...
.
In the mid 1920s, before the "anti-centralist turn" of the party in 1927, the Independent Democratic Party drew support from the militant Yugoslav nationalist organization
ORJUNAORJUNA, ОРЈУНА, the commonly used acronym for Organizacija Jugoslavenskih Nacionalista, Организација Југославенских Националиста , was a political organization during the 1920s in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. It was the foremost fascist movement in interwar Yugoslavia...
.
Prominent members
- Svetozar Pribićević
Svetozar Pribićević was an ethnic Serb politician from Croatia who worked hard for creation of unitaristic Yugoslavia. However, he later became a bitter opponent of the same policy and of the dictatorship of king Aleksandar Karađorđević...
- Srdjan Budisavljević
- Albert Kramer
- Gregor Žerjav
Gregor Žerjav, sometimes spelled Žerjal , was a Slovene and Yugoslav lawyer and liberal politician. Together with Albert Kramer, he was the leader of the Slovenian liberals in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes....
- Dinko Puc
- Milko Brezigar
Milko Brezigar was a Slovene and Yugoslav liberal economist.Born to a Slovene family the village of Doberdò del Lago in the Austrian Littoral , he attended the State gymnasium in Gorizia. He studied law at the universities of Graz and Vienna, graduating in 1910...