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Political party in Serbia

The Socialist Party of Serbia (, abbr. SPS) is a political party in Serbia. Ivica Dačić has led SPS as its president since 2006. SPS was founded in 1990 as a merger of the League of Communists of Serbia and Socialist Alliance of Working People of Yugoslavia with Slobodan Milošević as its first president. In the 1990 general elections, SPS became the ruling party of Serbia while Milošević was elected president of Serbia. During Milošević's rule, SPS relied on the Serbian Radical Party (SRS) from 1992 to 1993 while it later led several coalition governments with SRS, New Democracy, and Yugoslav Left. Mass protests against SPS were held in 1991, and after being accused of falsifying votes in major urban cities, such as Belgrade and Niš, 1996–1997 protests were also organised. The Democratic Opposition of Serbia coalition defeated SPS in the 2000 general elections but Milošević declined to accept the results. This resulted in Milošević's overthrow. SPS was in opposition until 2003 after which it served as confidence and supply to the government led by Vojislav Koštunica until 2007. Dačić led SPS into a coalition government with the Democratic Party after the 2008 parliamentary election, while four years later he became the prime minister of Serbia after the formation of a coalition government with the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS). He remained prime minister until 2014, while SPS has since then remained a junior member of SNS led governments. Although it described itself as a democratic socialist party, SPS promoted mixed economy and populist nationalism under Milošević's leadership and was accused of authoritarianism. SPS has remained populist under Dačić but it shifted towards social democracy and a more pragmatic, pro European image. SPS is affiliated and cooperates with United Serbia and Greens of Serbia.

After the World War II, the Communist Party consolidated power in Yugoslavia. Each constituent republic had its own branch of the party, with Serbia having the Communist Party of Serbia, which was renamed to League of Communists of Serbia (SKS) in 1952. SKS elected Slobodan Milošević as its president in 1986, after an endorsement coming from then incumbent president of SKS, Ivan Stambolić. Milošević came to power by promising to reduce the autonomy of provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina. At a congress that was held in January 1990, rifts between SKS and League of Communists of Slovenia occurred which ultimately led to the dissolution of the federal Communist Party. This also led to the establishment of multi party systems in the constituent republics. Milošević organised a congress on 17 July 1990, during which its delegates voted in favour of merging SKS and the Socialist Alliance of Working People of Yugoslavia (SSRNJ) to create the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS). Milošević was elected as the party's president. According to political scientist Jerzy Wiatr, the merger "did not substantially change either the organisational structure of the party or its administration", although SPS did gain control of a large amount of infrastructure, including material and financial assets. Milošević as president of the SPS was able to wield considerable power and influence in the government and the public and private sectors, while members of SPS who had shown their independence from loyalty towards Milošević were expelled from the party.

SPS took part in the general elections which was organised for December 1990. The parliamentary election was conducted in a first past the post system, where members were elected in 250 single member constituency seats; this system strengthened the position of SPS. This resulted into SPS winning 194 out of 250 seats in the National Assembly, despite only winning 48% of the popular vote. Opposition parties, such as the Democratic Party (DS) and Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO), tried to challenge the legitimacy of the election, citing alleged abuse of postal voting and manipulation during vote counting. By January 1991, sociologist Laslo Sekelj reported that SPS had 500,000 members. SPS was faced with protests in March 1991, while Milošević was succeeded by Borisav Jović as the president of SPS on 24 May 1991; he held the position until 24 October 1992, when Milošević returned as president of SPS, following the second party congress. With the opposition boycotting the May 1992 parliamentary election, due to claiming that there were no free and fair electoral conditions, Protests were held shortly after the election, after which snap elections were called for December 1992, in which SPS won 33% of the popular vote. In the presidential election however, Milošević won 57% of the popular vote in the first round, while his opponent Milan Panić won 35% of the popular vote.

After the announcement that SPS would abandon its hardline position regarding the Bosnian War and Croatian War of Independence in favour of a compromise and after a dispute regarding the rebalancing of the federal budget in July 1993, the coalition between SPS and SRS was disintegrated. In the parliamentary election, SPS won 123 seats, though still short 3 seats of a majority, Milošević then persuaded the New Democracy (ND), which as part of the SPO led Democratic Movement of Serbia coalition won 5 seats, to enter a coalition government with SPS. ND accepted this and the new government headed by Mirko Marjanović was sworn in March 1994. to contest the parliamentary elections for the federal parliament in November 1996. SPS was accused of falsifying votes in cities such as Belgrade and Niš in the 1996 local elections. The Electoral Commission also invalidated the results. Milošević, who was constitutionally limited to two terms as president of Serbia, was elected president of Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in July 1997, shortly before the general elections in Serbia. SPS took part with ND and JUL under the Left Coalition banner and won 110 seats in the National Assembly. ND declined to join the government and the coalition was subsequently disintegrated after SPS and JUL formed a government with SRS. In the presidential election, SPS nominated Zoran Lilić, although the election ended up being annulled as the election's turnout was less than 50%. Vuk Drašković, the leader of SPO, supported the proposed Rambouillet Agreement, though Milošević declined to sign it, which ultimately led to the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. Additionally, SPS and SPO entered into a conflict after the assassination of journalist Slavko Ćuruvija, which led to dismissal of SPO from the federal government. Milošević accepted defeat on 5 October 2000, while the Federal Election Committee published actual results on 7 October. Shortly after the elections, SPS, SPO, and DOS agreed to organise a snap parliamentary election in Serbia in December 2000. Following the 2000 elections, Milorad Vučelić formed the Democratic Socialist Party while Zoran Lilić also left and formed the Serbian Social Democratic Party.

Milošević, who was still the president of SPS, was arrested in March 2001 on suspicion of corruption and abuse of power, and was shortly after extradited to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia to stand trial for war crimes instead. At the presidential election in September 2002, SPS nominated actor Bata Živojinović; he placed sixth. This election ended up being annulled as the turnout in the second round was less than 50%. SPS supported Vojislav Šešelj, the leader of SRS. At a party congress in January 2003, Ivica Dačić, a reformist within SPS, was elected president of the party's main board. It was reported that Milošević subsequently demanded his exclusion of the party, although Dačić denied this. Another presidential election was held in November 2003 which SPS ended up boycotting. A month later, SPS took part in a snap parliamentary election in which it won 22 seats; the drop in popularity occurred due to their voters shifting towards SRS. SPS ended up serving as confidence and supply to Koštunica's government in the National Assembly. After the death of Milošević in March 2006, a conflict between Dačić and Vučelić emerged regarding who would continue leading the party. At the party congress in December 2006, Dačić was officially elected president of SPS, after previously serving as the party's de facto leader since 2003. In the parliamentary election that was held in January 2007, SPS dropped to 16 seats in the National Assembly, after which SPS returned to opposition. A year later, SPS nominated Milutin Mrkonjić, the party's deputy president, as its candidate in the presidential election. Mrkonjić campaigned on social issues and issues regarding the economy, insisting that SPS is "the true party of the left" and that Serbia should join the European Union. SPS shortly after formed a coalition with United Serbia (JS) and Party of United Pensioners of Serbia (PUPS) which took part in the snap parliamentary election in May 2008. The coalition won 20 seats, 12 of which went to SPS alone. Initially, SPS negotiated with SRS, Democratic Party of Serbia, and New Serbia to form a government, however SPS ended up abandoning those negotiations in favour of those with the For a European Serbia coalition, which was led by DS. Additionally, SPS signed a reconciliation agreement with its government partner DS, although clashes between the parties had continued to occur even after the agreement. Further, protests that were organised in 2011 led Boris Tadić, the president of Serbia, to call snap elections for 2012. During the 2012 campaign period, SPS campaigned with JS and PUPS, with Dačić being their joint presidential candidate. Dačić placed third in the presidential election, winning 15% of the popular vote. This resulted into Dačić becoming the prime minister of Serbia in July 2012. As prime minister, Dačić worked on normalisation between Serbia and Kosovo, which was formalised under the Brussels Agreement in April 2013. His government was re shuffled on his order in September 2013, after which SPS and SNS continued to govern alone without the United Regions of Serbia. However, president Nikolić called for snap parliamentary elections to be held in March 2014. SPS took part in the election with JS and PUPS and campaigned on the protection of workers, peasants, and pensioners. They won 44 seats in the National Assembly, while their coalition partner, SNS, won 158 seats in total.

Throughout of 2015, it was discussed whether a snap parliamentary election would occur. This was confirmed in January 2016, when a parliamentary election was announced to be held in April 2016. Following the announcement, PUPS left the SPS–JS coalition and joined the one that was led by SNS, while SPS and JS formalised a coalition with the Greens of Serbia (ZS). The SPS led ballot list also included Joška Broz, the leader of the Communist Party and the grandson of Josip Broz Tito. This coalition won 29 seats in the National Assembly, 21 out of which were occupied by SPS. Following the election, SPS agreed to again serve as a junior member in the SNS led coalition government, which was inaugurated in August 2016. SPS did not take part in the 2017 presidential election and instead it supported Vučić, who ended up winning 56% of the popular vote in the first round of the election. His election as president was followed by mass protests. At the end of 2018, a series of anti government protests began and they lasted until March 2020. During this period, the opposition Alliance for Serbia announced that it would boycott the 2020 parliamentary elections. This led the SPS led coalition to win 32 seats, despite getting less votes than in the 2016 election. SPS offered to continue its cooperation with the SNS led coalition, which now had 188 out of 250 seats in the National Assembly. SPS remained in government with SNS after the election, while Dačić, who had been the first deputy prime minister of Serbia since 2014, became the president of the National Assembly in October 2020. Dačić presided over the dialogues to improve election conditions from May to October 2021. SPS affirmed its position to continue its support for SNS after these dialogues, while in January 2022, SPS announced that it would support Vučić in the 2022 presidential election. In the parliamentary election, SPS took part in a coalition with JS and ZS, while it campaigned on greater cooperation with China and Russia. It won 31 seats in total, 22 out of which went to SPS, while Vučić won 60% of the popular vote in the presidential election. SPS agreed to continue governing with SNS after the election, which led to Dačić being re appointed as first deputy prime minister in October 2022. After Vučić announced the formation of the People's Movement for the State in March 2023, Dačić has affirmed that it could bring "a new, even higher stage of cooperation between SNS and SPS". However, a faction opposed to joining the movement was formed inside SPS with individuals, such as vice president Predrag J. Marković who has said that "SPS would lose its identity if it joins the movement". Despite this, SPS again formed an electoral alliance with JS and ZS for the early 2023 parliamentary election. SPS suffered from defeat in the elections, only winning 12 seats as part of the SPS led coalition. Dačić expressed his willingness of electing a new president of SPS, however, the main board of SPS expressed its support for Dačić to remain president of SPS and to continue the cooperation with SNS.

SPS adopted its first political programme in October 1990, which had the intention to develop "Serbia as a socialist republic, founded on law and social justice". SPS maintained connections with trade unions, although independent trade unions faced hostility and their activities were brutalised by the police. and was associated with anti liberalism. SPS declared itself to be a "democratic socialist party" and "the follower of the ideas of Svetozar Marković, Dimitrije Tucović, and the Serbian Social Democratic Party". Political scientists Heinz Timmermann and Luke March, and Marko Stojić, a Metropolitan University Prague lecturer, associated SPS during Milošević's era with nationalist form of populism. Political scientist Jean Pierre Cabestan noted that SPS thrived on the growth of nationalism, but was not nationalist itself, and instead associated SPS with communism. Mirjana Prošić Dvornić, an ethnologist, noted that SPS "usurped the nationalist rhetoric of opposition parties". Janusz Bugajski, a political scientist, described SPS as nationalist, but also noted that it never identified as such. Warren Zimmermann, the last United States ambassador to Yugoslavia, argued that Milošević was "not a genuine nationalist but an opportunist". SPS nominally endorsed the principle of full equality of all the Yugoslav peoples and ethnic minorities, while it was also supportive of Yugoslavism. Though shortly before the Dayton Agreement in 1995, SPS began to oppose the government of Republika Srpska, which was headed by Radovan Karadžić. Independent media during the SPS administration received threats and high fines. and then to social democracy in the 2010s. Although SPS is still affiliated and has promoted populist rhetoric, It is now positioned on the centre left on the political spectrum. Prior to mid 2000s, SPS was Eurosceptic and it also promoted anti globalist and anti Western sentiment. Since then, SPS had adopted its support for the accession of Serbia to the European Union, Besides this, SPS has also been also described as pro Russian.

Before the federal parliamentary election in December 1992, the Institute of Social Studies polled that a majority of SPS supporters preferred a citizen state over a nation state. In comparison with its demographic from the 1990s, the percentage of workers and farmers increased amongst its base in the 2000s. According to CeSID in 2008, a majority of supporters of the SPS–PUPS–JS coalition were Eurosceptics. The Heinrich Böll Foundation conducted a research in November 2020 in which most SPS supporters were against the accession of Serbia to the European Union, preferred closer relations with Russia instead, and wanted to implement laws to preserve patriarchal family values.

The current president of SPS is Dačić, who was most recently re elected in December 2022, while the current vice presidents are Aleksandar Antić, Branko Ružić, Dušan Bajatović, Novica Tončev, Predrag J. Marković, Slavica Đukić Dejanović, Đorđe Milićević, and Žarko Obradović. The president of its parliamentary group is Snežana Paunović. The headquarters of SPS is located at Bulevar Mihajla Pupina 6 in Belgrade. It has a youth wing named Socialist Youth and a women's wing named Women's Forum. Its membership from its foundation in 1990 to 1997 involved many elements of the social strata of Serbia, including state administrators and business management elites of state owned enterprises, employees in the state owned sector, less privileged groups of farmers, and the unemployed and pensioners. SPS reported to have 65,000 members in 2015. In 2016, it was reported that SPS had 195,000 members.

SPS cooperated with Momir Bulatović in Montenegro and the parties he led, while in Bosnia and Herzegovina SPS used to cooperate with Karadžić's Serb Democratic Party and with the Socialist Party. SPS cooperates with Syriza, a political party in Greece. Following the 2008 elections, SPS sent an application to join the Socialist International while Dačić also met with its then president George Papandreou. However, the Social Democratic Party of Bosnia and Herzegovina opposed this move and called for its application to be declined, while Jelko Kacin, a Liberal Democracy of Slovenia politician, claimed that Tadić blocked SPS from joining the Socialist International. Its candidature has not yet been accepted, although SPS also seeks associate member status in the Party of European Socialists. In the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, SPS is represented by Dunja Simonović Bratić, who sits in the Socialists, Democrats and Greens Group.

+ National Assembly of Serbia Year Leader Popular vote % of popular vote # of seats Seat change Coalition Status Ref. (Reference) 1990 Slobodan Milošević 2,320,587 48.15% 1st 194 – 1992 1,359,086 30.62% 1st 93 – 1993 1,576,287 38.21% 1st 22 – 1997 1,418,036 35.70% 1st 38 Left Coalition 2000 516,326 14.10% 2nd 48 – 2003 Ivica Dačić 291,341 7.72% 6th 15 – 2007 227,580 5.74% 5th 6 – 2008 313,896 7.75% 4th 4 SPS–PUPS–JS 2012 567,689 15.18% 3rd 13 SPS–PUPS–JS 2014 484,607 13.94% 2nd 0 SPS–PUPS–JS 2016 413,770 11.28% 2nd 4 SPS–JS–KP–ZS 2020 334,333 10.78% 2nd 1 SPS–JS–KP–ZS 2022 435,274 11.79% 3rd 0 SPS–JS–ZS 2023 249,916 6.73% 3rd 10 SPS–JS–ZS

+ President of Serbia Year Candidate 1st round popular vote % of popular vote 2nd round popular vote % of popular vote Notes Ref. (Reference) 1990 Slobodan Milošević 3,285,799 67.71% — — Sep 1997 Zoran Lilić 1,474,924 37.12% 1,691,354 49.38% Election annulled due to low turnout Dec 1997 Milan Milutinović 1,665,822 44.62% 2,181,808 61.19% Sep–Oct 2002 Bata Živojinović 119,052 3.34% — — Election annulled due to low turnout Dec 2002 Vojislav Šešelj 1,063,296 37.10% — — Supported Šešelj; election annulled due to low turnout 2003 Election boycott Election annulled due to low turnout 2004 Ivica Dačić 125,952 4.09% — — 2008 Milutin Mrkonjić 245,889 6.09% — — 2012 Ivica Dačić 556,013 14.89% — — 2022 2,224,914 60.01% — —

Year Leader Popular vote % of popular vote # of seats Seat change Coalition Status Notes Ref. (Reference) May 1992 Slobodan Milošević 1,655,485 49.05% 1st 73 – 1992–1993 1,478,918 33.34% 1st 26 – 1996 1,848,669 45.34% 1st 5 Left Coalition 2000 1,532,841 33.95% 2nd 8 – Chamber of Citizens election 1,479,583 32.68% 2nd 7 – Chamber of Republics election

+ President of FR Yugoslavia Year Candidate 1st round popular vote % of popular vote 2nd round popular vote % of popular vote Ref. (Reference) 2000 Slobodan Milošević 1,826,799 38.24% — —