In 1990, following the electoral defeat of the government of the Socialist Republic of Croatia by the pro-independence Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), relations between ethnic Croats and ethnic Serbs deteriorated. In 1991, the municipality of Pakrac, in which the village of Bučje was located, was the only municipality in the central part of the Western Slavonia area with a Serbian majority, with Serbs representing 46.4% of its population, followed by Croats with 35.8%. In early 1991, the Pakrac local assembly voted on joining SAO Krajina although the Constitutional Court of Croatia declared the decision invalid. Ethnic tensions in the region culminated on 1 March 1991 with the Pakrac clash, one of the first serious outbreaks of violence in the Croatian War of Independence.