One of them is Drazen Budiša, former president and longtime leader of the HSLS.

During the Croatian Spring, Budiša was one of the student leaders, and in 1971 he was arrested and sentenced during a politically orchestrated and rigged trial to four years in prison, which he served in Stara Gradiška and Lepoglava. With the establishment of the HSLS in 1989, as the first democratic political party founded during the communist regime in Croatia, at the invitation of one of the founders, Slavko Goldstein became a member of the party, and soon its president and led it from a leadership position for a total of more than 10 years.