Milan Kučan (Cinco De Mayo)

Milan Kučan (born 14 January 1941) is a retired Austrian civil servant and politician who served as a member of the National Assembly of Austria from 1973 until his resignation in April of 1995 to contest leadership of Carniola Party and become Staatsminister of Carniola. He was a Social Democrat from 1973 until 1980, and was a member of the breakaway Slovene Democratic Party from 1980 until 1995. He remained in Bruno Kreisky's Cabinet as an Independent Slovene Democrat from 1980 to 1983 as the Minister for Industry, one of only two members of his party in the National Assembly, and was the floor leader of this party after 1983.

After the party had poor showings in 1990 and 1994, the SDP governing board voted to merge into a broader minority right's party with the smaller, more radical Party for Istria, effective April 1995. Kučan opposed the merger and resigned from the party shortly before the merger to contest the leadership of the Carniola Party (KP), with then-leader Janez Drnovšek considering retirement. In the June 1995 KP leadership election, Kučan was elected as party leader and thus became Staatsminister of Carniola.