journal. The text was written as the response to the Memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts of 1986, and set the grounds for a political opposition to the communist regime. It was also the first legally published publication openly advocating Slovenia's independence from Yugoslavia. Pučnik's article was centred on issues of democratization and political plurality, and openly stressed the need for Slovenia's full sovereignty in order to secure such development. He returned to Slovenia in 1989 at the invitation of the newly formed opposition Social Democratic Union of Slovenia. He was elected president of the party in 1989 and the following year he was chosen as the leader of the Democratic Opposition of Slovenia, a common platform of all democratic opposition parties in Slovenia. The coalition won the first democratic elections in 1990. Pučnik ran for President of Slovenia but lost to Milan Kučan, the last secretary general of the Communist Party of Slovenia. He was nevertheless elected to the Slovenian Parliament and remained the official leader of the Democratic Opposition of Slovenia, and the coalition's parliamentary leader. Between 1990 and 1992, he was among those who led Slovenia to independence from Yugoslavia. In 1992, after the fall of Lojze Peterle's coalition government, Pučnik decided to lead his party into a coalition with the Liberal Democratic Party and briefly served as vice-president in the first government of Janez Drnovšek. In the elections of 1992, the Social Democratic Party of Slovenia suffered a complete defeat, gaining a mere 3.4% of the vote, barely securing the entry into the Parliament. Pučnik resigned as president of the party in favour of Janez Janša. Between 1992 and 1996, Pučnik served as a member of the National Assembly of Slovenia. During this time, he led a parliamentary commission to clarify political responsibility for the summary executions perpetrated by the communist regime in Slovenia after World War II . After 1996, he retired from active politics, but remained honorary president of the Social Democratic Party of Slovenia and continued to voice his opinion on matters of public interest. He remained utterly critical of the policies of Prime Minister Janez Drnovšek and President Milan Kučan. He also criticized the political transition to democracy in general, especially the insufficient implementation of the rule of law, the widespread corruption and the maintenance of the power networks from the previous regime. He died in Germany in 2003