Josip "Joža" Manolić (pronounced [jǒsip mǎnolit͡ɕ]; 22 March 1920 – 15 April 2024) was a Croatian politician and communist revolutionary during World War II in Yugoslavia.

He served as a high-ranking official of the Yugoslav State Security Administration (OZNA or UDBA) and later as Prime Minister of Croatia, from 24 August 1990 to 17 July 1991.

Following his brief term as prime minister, Manolić served as the first Speaker of the Chamber of Counties, the then upper house of the Croatian Parliament, from 1993 until 1994.

[6] After the outbreak of the World War II in Yugoslavia, Manolić was involved in illegal party activity in Nova Gradiška.

[6] After the war, in spring of 1946, Manolić was dismissed as Chief of OZNA 2 for Bjelovar, and in autumn of the same year, he was sent to be educated at the Military-Political School in Belgrade.

[7] At the end of 1947, Manolić returned to Zagreb, and was named the Chief of the Department for Staff of the State Security Administration of PR Croatia.

On 1 August 1948, Manolić was named the Chief of Department for Execution of Criminal Sentences of the Secretariat of Internal Affairs in Zagreb.

[6] 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.

[citation needed] He took another, even more important post as the head of Constitutional Order Protection Office (Ured za zaštitu ustavnog poretka),[6] a body that would coordinate and supervise all Croatian security services.

[citation needed] In 1994, 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.

[6] Manolić's attempt to take power on national level failed, but his supporters in the Zagreb County Assembly succeeded in replacing HDZ administration.

[6] His autobiography, Politika i domovina – Moja borba za suverenu i socijalnu Hrvatsku (Politics and homeland - My fight for a sovereign and social Croatia), was published in 2015.

Namely, he was found to be one of the oldest holders of a valid driver's license in Croatia[17] and also became allegedly the first Croat to have undergone a sequencing of his genome.