The Yugoslav National Party (Serbo-Croatian and Slovenian: Jugoslovenska nacionalna stranka, Serbian Cyrillic: Југословенска национална странка, JNS) was a political party in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia between 1932 and 1941. It was established under the name Yugoslav Radical Peasants' Democracy as a regime party of Alexander I of Yugoslavia.
On January 6, 1929, the king dissolved the Parliament and abolished the constitution, and banning all political parties. This became known as the January 6th Dictatorship. In 1931, a new constitution was put into place, allowing partial political freedoms. However, most of the political power remained in the power of the King and the government, appointed by him.
In May 1932, the Yugoslav Radical Peasants' Democracy was established as a regime party under the leadership of Petar Živković. It was formed mostly by dissident members of the Democratic Party and the People's Radical Party, as well as the Slovenian section of the Independent Democratic Party and the right wing of the Slovenian Peasant's Party. Individual members from other parties, and from nationalist organizations like Orjuna also joined. In June 1933, it was renamed to Yugoslav National Party, and adopted a program stressing the unity of the Yugoslav nation, centralized government and secularism.
From 1932 to 1935, the party formed the nation's government. Petar Živković, Milan Srškić and Nikola Uzunović were the country's prime ministers while the party was in power. After King Alexander was assassinated in 1934, the party assumed most of the powers. However, the economic and political instability of the country, and fierce opposition from Croatia challenged the party's power. Elections were called in 1935; although they were not free, the regime party suffered a serious setback. A former member of the Yugoslav National Party Milan Stojadinović formed a new regime party, called Yugoslav Radical Community, based on a more conservative political alliance, which included Bosnian Muslims and Slovenian right-wing Catholics. The Yugoslav National Party went into opposition, where it remained until 1941.
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Famous quotes containing the words national and/or party:
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“He said, truly, that the reason why such greatly superior numbers quailed before him was, as one of his prisoners confessed, because they lacked a cause,—a kind of armor which he and his party never lacked. When the time came, few men were found willing to lay down their lives in defense of what they knew to be wrong; they did not like that this should be their last act in this world.”
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