Serbian Renewal Movement

The Serbian Renewal Movement (Serbian: Српски покрет обнове, Srpski pokret obnove) is a political party in Serbia. It was founded in 1990. In 1997 a dissident group abandoned the party and formed New Serbia.

The party was part of Zajedno in 1996 and contested the Yugoslav federal elections and the local elections that caused an upheaval through the end of that year. In 1997, party leader Vuk Drašković ran twice to be Serbian President but finished third in both elections with about a quarter of the vote. Its party won the third largest number of seats in that year's Serbian parliamentary elections.

In early 1999, the SPO joined the Yugoslav government, and Drašković became a Yugoslav Deputy Prime Minister. The SPO had a place in Serbia's Rambouillet delegation and held posts such as the Yugoslav Information Ministry to show a more pro-Western face to the world in the run-up to Nato's 1999 bombing campaign against the country. In the midst of the war, Drašković and the SPO pulled out the government, calling on the government to surrender to Nato.

The SPO participated in the attempt to overthrow Milošević through the rest of 1999 through street demonstrations, but Drašković chose in the midst of them to break off his alliance with Zoran Đinđić. This caused the anti-Milošević elements to suggest that he was working for Milošević.

In the revolutionary 2000 presidential and parliamentary elections in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in which Milošević lost, the Serbian Renewal Movement overestimated its strength and ran independently, outside of the vast Democratic Opposition of Serbia coalition. Vojislav Mihajlović, grandson of Chetnik commander Draža Mihajlović, was its presidential candidate. He was opposed by Vojislav Koštunica of DOS, Slobodan Milošević of the ruling SPS and Tomislav Nikolić of the Serbian Radical Party. The SPO's vote collapsed, with its traditional voters drawn by Kostunica's conservative nationalism and by the fact that he was their best hope to remove Milošević from power.

There was talk before the 5 October coup d'état of dissolving the Mirko Marjanović government in Serbia and setting up a government with the Serbian Radical Party. Following the coup, the SPO participated in a so-called national unity government that served effectively under DOS "coordinator" Zoran Đinđić. In December 2000, after two months of DOS rule, Serbian parliamentary elections were held. The SPO, once the strongest opposition, failed to enter the parliament.

The SPO was sidelined as Đinđić ran Serbia and dissolved Yugoslavia in 2003. This brought into existence a new country called Serbia and Montenegro.

The party fought the December 2003 legislative elections in a coalition with New Serbia. The coalition won 7.7% of the popular vote and 22 seats. 13 of these were allocated to the SPO. In turn, the coalition had dispatched 8 deputies into the Assembly of Serbia and Montenegro.

SPO-NS became part of Vojislav Koštunica's first Serbian government. Vuk Drašković in turn became Serbia-Montenegro's Foreign Minister.

Following a split in the party, 9 members of parliament joined the newly-formed Serbian Democratic Renewal Movement leaving the SPO with only 4. One of the 4 was then bought off by the political tycoon Bogoljub Karić to form his party's list.

The SPO fought the 2007 elections alone and took 3.33% of the vote, winning no seats.

In the parliamentary elections of 11 May 2008 the SPO constituted part of coalition For European Serbia, under the President Boris Tadić, which occupied the first place, gaining, 38.42 of the vote and 102 seats of the Serbian parliament, while the same SPO took four seats and its vice president mr Srđan Srećković occupied the ministry of Diaspora.