mate grani born 19 september 1947 is a croatian diplomat and politician who was part of the croatian government in much of the 1990sgrani was born in baka voda in dalmatia then pr croatia fpr yugoslavia he graduated from a gymnasium in split and the medical faculty of the university of zagreb to become a doctor by professionmate grani served as the foreign minister of croatia from 1993 until 2000 he was a member of the croatian democratic union hdz and a close associate of franjo tuman as foreign minister grani helped negotiate a peace treaty between croatia bosnia and serbia and he visited serbia in 1996grani was considered to be a leader of hdz moderates his objective as foreign minister was to justify croatian policies towards bosnia and krajina and protecting croatia from un sanctions he did that successfully which combined with his mild nature made him one of the most popular hdz politicianshis general popularity made him a natural choice for partys presidential candidate after the tumans death in january 2000 grani entered the presidential election but was eliminated in the first round coming in third place with 225 of the vote he was not a great campaigner nor a natural populist which probably led to his crushing defeatwhen a new cabinet took office later that month now with the hdz without the presidency or control of the parliament grani lost his post as foreign minister afterwards granis led a splinter faction of hdz to form the democratic centre demokratski centar grani believed that hdz will be completely overtaken by radicals led by ivi paali former tumans interior politics consultant and thats why he founded a new partyhowever not all moderates followed grani and in 2002 they finally won a bitter innerparty struggle with far right granis former protg ivo sanader became partys leader and all that made dc politically indistinct from hdz as a result the party barely survived 2003 elections securing only one parliamentary seat for vesna kareobolt who later became the minister of justice in sanaders governmentgrani left dc and seemingly retired from public life after the election in 2004 he founded a consulting company called magra ltd in zagreb in 2005 he became a special advisor to the presidency of the croatian party of rights hspin the 2007 parliamentary election he headed the hsp election list in the 3rd election unit the list failed to attain a seat in the parliamentgrani is married with three children his brother goran grani is a prominent croatian politician but unlike mate goran is a liberal