Socialist Party of Serbia - History

History

The Socialist Party of Serbia was founded on June 16, 1990 by Slobodan Milošević as a merger between the League of Communists of Serbia and the Socialist Alliance of the Working People of Serbia, led by Radmila Anđelković.

Its membership from its foundation in 1990 to 1997 involved many elements of the social strata of Serbia, including: state administrators, including business management elites of state-owned enterprises; employees in the state-owned sector; less privileged groups farmers; and dependants (the unemployed and pensioners). From 1998 to 2000, its membership included: apparatchiks at administrative and judicial levels; the nouveau riche, whose business success was founded solely from their affiliation with the regime; top army and police officials and a large majority of the police force. Large numbers of people became members simply for reasons of patronage: to maintain or gain important positions, while holding little commitment to the SPS program. Following its foundation, the SPS demanded strict loyalty to its leader, Milošević, by top party officials and any sign of independence from such loyalty led to expulsion from the party. Anyone who went against policy as defined by the party leadership could face sanctions or expulsion.

The SPS ran on Serbian nationalistic platforms from 1990 to 1993 during which, the SPS was in an informal coalition with the ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party (SRS); it ran on a non-nationalistic platform from 1994 to 1997 in response to criticism from the international community of the Bosnian Serb government of Radovan Karadžić; from 1998 through the Kosovo War, the SPS returned to a coalition with the SRS and resumed nationalistic policies.

The SPS during the Milošević era, has been accused of using an authoritarian style of rule and allowing a criminal economy to exist in Serbia including personal profiteering by the Milošević family from illegal business transactions in the arms trade, cigarettes, oil, and drugs. Opposition media to the SPS or Milošević's administration were harassed by threats; media members involved were fired or arrested; independent media faced high fines; state-sponsored paramilitaries seized radio equipment of opposition supporters; and in April 1999, the owner and distributor of the most popular daily newspaper in Serbia was killed. The SPS maintained the Communist era policy of maintaining connection with official trade unions, however independent trade unions faced hostility and their activists were brutalized by police while in custody.

The party won the first elections in Serbia with 194 out of 250 seats and 77.6% of the popular vote. From 1992 it governed in coalition with other parties – initially with the Serbian Radical Party, and from 1993 with the New Democracy Party. They also contested elections in coalition with Yugoslav Left, a party led by Milošević's wife Mirjana Marković.

With the ousting of Milošević in 2000, the party became a part of the opposition. In the 2003 Serbian general elections, the party won 7.6% of the popular vote and 22 out of 250 seats in the National Assembly of Serbia. In 2004, however, its candidate in the presidential election, Ivica Dačić, placed fifth with 3.6% of the vote.

In 2007 parliamentary elections, the Socialist Party of Serbia won 16 seats with 227,580 or 5.64% of votes. It formed a sole parliamentary group, with Ivica Dačić as president and Žarko Obradović as vice-president. It won 14 seats outright while a single seat was given to its new partner, the Movement of Veterans of Serbia and non-partisan Borka Vučić, who became the transitional speaker, also received a seat.

In the 2008 parliamentary election, the SPS and the Party of United Pensioners of Serbia (PUPS) have strengthened their links by forming a coalition, on which United Serbia and Movement of Veterans of Serbia were present. The coalition won 23 seats with 313,896 or 7.58 percent of votes. SPS and its coalition partners entered post-election coalition with the For a European Serbia group.