July 1991, he was Prime Minister of Croatia, having succeeded Stjepan Mesić in the post. His Chief of Staff was Tomislav Karamarko, the future chairman of the HDZ and Deputy Prime Minister under Tihomir Orešković. On 25 June 1991, the Croatian Parliament voted for Croatia to secede from SFR Yugoslavia and declared it an independent country. Manolić was succeeded by Franjo Gregurić in July 1991. When Manolić left the office on 17 July 1991 Croatian forces — police and nascent military — were involved in full-scale war with Krajina rebels, who were backed by the Yugoslav federal army. He took another, even more important post as the head of Constitutional Order Protection Office (Ured za zaštitu ustavnog poretka), a body that would coordinate and supervise all Croatian security services. There he built Tuđman's security apparatus, relying mostly on the old cadre from UDBA and other sections of the Communist-era security apparatus. Despite the nature of his work, he remained very much in the public spotlight. In his interviews and statements he gradually gained a reputation of being a moderate. His enormous power, moderate views and Partisan past made him very unpopular among the rank and file of the HDZ party and brought him into conflict with Gojko Šušak, the powerful Minister of Defence, who led a hard-line nationalist faction. In 1993 Manolić was replaced from his post and elected as Speaker of the Chamber of Counties of Croatia (to 1994). Many saw this as his demotion and fall from Tuđman's favor. One year later Manolić and Mesić tried to organise a mass defection of HDZ members of Sabor and thus deprive Franjo Tuđman of parliamentary majority. They failed and later, together with other HDZ dissidents, created a new party called Croatian Independent Democrats (HND), of which Manolić was the president in 1995. Manolić's attempt to take power on national level failed, but his supporters in the Zagreb County Assembly succeeded in replacing HDZ administration. This led Tuđman to introduce new legislation, merging Zagreb County and the City of Zagreb and calling for new elections, which ultimately resulted in the Zagreb Crisis. Those elections coincided with the 1995 parliamentary elections, during which HND fared badly, failing to enter Sabor. Since that time, Manolić has been retired from active politics. His autobiography, Politika i domovina – Moja borba za suverenu i socijalnu Hrvatsku (Politics and homeland - My fight for a sovereign