Jože Pučnik

Jože Pučnik
Jože Pučnik in the late 1990s
President of the Social Democratic Party of Slovenia
Preceded by	France Tomšič
Succeeded by	Janez Janša
Personal details
Born	(1932-03-09)9 March 1932 Črešnjevec, Slovenska Bistrica, Kingdom of Yugoslavia
Died	11 January 2003(2003-01-11) (aged 70) Germany
Political party	Democratic Opposition of Slovenia, Social Democratic Party of Slovenia

Jože Pučnik (9 March 1932 – 11 January 2003) was a Slovenian public intellectual, sociologist and politician. During the Communist regime of Josip Broz Tito, Pučnik was one of the most outspoken Slovenian critics of dictatorship and lack of civil liberties in Yugoslavia. He was imprisoned for a total of seven years, and later forced into exile. After returning to Slovenia in the late 1980s, he became the leader of the Democratic Opposition of Slovenia, a platform of democratic parties that defeated the Communists in the first free elections in 1990 and introduced a democratic system and market economy to Slovenia. He is also considered one of the fathers of Slovenian independence from Yugoslavia.

Pučnik was born in the village of Črešnjevec in Slovenian Styria (now part of the municipality of Slovenska Bistrica), in what was then the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. He came from a Roman Catholic peasant background. His family had supported the Liberation Front of the Slovenian People during World War II: his older brother Ivan was an anti-Nazi resistance fighter in the Yugoslav Partisan movement.

Already as a teenager, Pučnik clashed with the Communist establishment. Because of some critical thoughts published in the high school paper Iskanja ("Quests") he was prohibited from taking his final exam. Since he couldn't enroll in the University, he was drafted in the Yugoslav People's Army. After completing the military service, he took the final exam, passed it and enrolled at the University of Ljubljana, where he studied philosophy and comparative literature, graduating in 1958.