The party was formed in April 2000 by former Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) senior government officials Mate Granić and Vesna Škare-Ožbolt.

The 2000 defeat, which came in the aftermath of the death of the party's longtime leader Franjo Tuđman, ousted HDZ after nearly a decade of being in power.

In the ensuing internal power struggles, a number of factions, ranging from hard-line nationalists to center-right moderates, left to form their own parties.

In the 2003 general election DC was allied with HDZ, and, following HDZ's return to power, gained a single seat in the Croatian Parliament, and a single ministerial post in the Cabinet of Ivo Sanader I, as Škare-Ožbolt, the party's leader and their only representative elected to parliament, was appointed Justice Minister.

[6] In the 2007 general elections DC ran independently, entering coalition agreements with the Green Party in some constituencies.