1952 Yugoslavian Federal Election (Free Yugoslavia)

Background
The first Purić cabinet, consisting of the Serbian Radical Party, the Croatian Peasant's Party, and the Slovene People's Party, was inaugurated immediately after the 1948 election and soon got to work. The government began an ambitious reconstruction and industrialization plan and, buffeted by massive American aid as part of the Marshall Plan, Yugoslavia began recovering from the destruction of the Second World War. However, the acceptance of American aid proved to be highly controversial as the United Socialist Party of Yugoslavia, a left-wing, pan-nationalist bloc led by former communist partisan Vladimir Velebit, strongly criticized the government's decision in accepting the aid and, evidenced by strong socialist gains in the 1950 banate elections, many Yugoslavs seemed to concur. The government, however, ignored these criticisms but was soon faced with a new crisis. In the 1950 banate election, the Croatian Peasant's Party, as predicted, won a majority in the banate parliaments of both Croatia-Slavonia and Dalmatia. The party had campaigned on a platform of unification between the two banates and immediately put forward a request to the federal government to allow for the merger of the two regions. This, however, would have required a constitutional amendment and it was unlikely that the motion could pass the mandatory nationwide referendum. Faced with these difficulties, CPP leader and deputy prime minister Vladko Maček, managed to convince his colleagues in the two banates to suspend their request, at least for the time being.

When news broke of this agreement, massive protests erupted in Croatia-Slavonia and Dalmatia. Egged on by the hardline Croat nationalist Party for Croatian Rights, many people in both territories marched against the Federal government and its perceived anti-Croat bias. The protests however, had largely been peacefully dissipated by the 14th of June, when a bomb exploded in the atrium of the Croatia-Slavonian banate parliament in Zagreb. Eleven people were killed, including CPP deputy Marko Zelenik. When investigators from the Royal Federal Security Service (RFSS) uncovered that the perpetrator, 19-year old Croat nationalist Lucijan Sabic, was a member of the banned terrorist Ustaše organization the case was driven to the forefront of Yugoslav political discourse. Subsequent investigations revealed that Sabic attended a class taught by a deputy belonging to the Party of Croatian Rights, and when it was revealed that the bomber was given supplies on the order of said deputy, the government used it as a pretense to ban the Party of Croatian Rights and place all its members under arrest. Party leader Mislav Jelenic was charged with aiding and abetting terrorism and PCR offices across the country were shut down.