Democratic Party (Serbia)

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The Democratic Party (Serbian: Демократска странка or Demokratska stranka) is officially a social democratic political party in Serbia. It is affiliated with the Socialist International, though not through full membership - reflecting perhaps the party's slight liberal conservative leanings.

After the 2003 elections, it became the third largest party in the National Assembly of Serbia, with 37 of 250 seats. It ran in an alliance with the Civic Alliance of Serbia which it accorded 2 seats according to a pre-election deal, Democratic Centre was also accorded 2 seats and the Social Democratic Union was accorded one seat, as were the Bosniak Democratic Party of Sandzak and the Social Liberal Party of Sandzak. After the election the Democratic Centre merged into the Democratic Party.

The party is not a part of the minority government (under Prime Minister Vojislav Koštunica), which took office in March 2004 after a dispute over whether the new government should accept support of Milošević's Socialist Party of Serbia or not.

After assassination of Zoran Đinđić, Boris Tadić took over as head of the party. In July 2004, he became the President of Serbia.

Contents

1 Policies
2 History

2.1 Predecessor Party
2.2 New Party
2.3 Recent events

3 See also
4 External links

Policies

The Democratic Party's program states that:

They support parliamentary democracy.
Public administration and public services should be professional and depoliticized. Public service needs to be effective and respectful of its users.
Government institutions should be cheap to maintain.
The government should be checked by independent judiciary and independent media.
They support decentralization of government, both territorially and fuctionally. Powers should be delegated to self-governing bodies whenever possible. Vojvodina should be truly autonomous.
Acts of government should be transparent and monitored by the public.
Participation of the people is essential, but governmental institutions need to be accessible.
They support European integration.
Government needs to ensure conditions in which businesses can operate freely.
They support small and medium businesses, family owned businesses and independent farmers.
There should be no discrimination based on sex, physical appearance, faith, beliefs or location.
They support middle class.
Government needs to invest in education, as well as transportation, energy, and telecommunications infrastructure.
They support social solidarity.
Government should maintain welfare programs.
They encourage creation of unions.

History

Predecessor Party

The precursor of the Democratic Party was formed in the early 20th century, after a group of primeraly young members seceded from the People's Radical Party (Narodna radikalna stranka) and formed the Independent Radical Party (Samostalna radikalna stranka). After the formation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenians, they merged with various other parties from the kingdom creating the Democratic Party in 1919. The elected president of the party was Ljubomir Davidović, also a president of the Assembly and a mayor of Belgrade. After his death in 1940, Milan Grol took over the presidency.

The Democratic Party won the plurality of votes on the first elections held in 1920, and until 1929 they participated in creation of the government, either independently or in a coalition. In 1929 King Alexander abolished the constitution and created a personal dictatorship, changing the name of the country to Kingdom of Yugoslavia. The Democratic Party remained in opposition until World War II.

Following Yugoslavian occupation by Germany in 1941, most of the party members fled to England. The ones who remained fought either along Chetniks or Partisans. After the war most members returned to Yugoslavia, but the Democratic Party called for a boycott of communist-organized elections in 1945. After the elections the Communist Party banned the Democratic Party and its newspapers Democracy (Demokratija). Until 1948, members were persecuted and many, including Milan Grol, arrested and sentenced to long terms in prison. One of the sentenced individuals was Borislav Pekić. In 1948 the party ceases its operation.

New Party

On December 11, 1989, a group of 13 intellectuals held a press conference in Belgrade where they announced that the Democratic Party is being formed and invited everyone to join the first opposition party in Serbia. The founders were:

Kosta Čavoški,
Milovan Danojlić,
Zoran Đinđić,
Gojko Đogo,
Vladimir Gligorov,
Slobodan Inić,
Marko Janković,
Vojislav Koštunica,
Dragoljub Mićunović,
Borislav Pekić,
Miodrag Perišić,
Radoslav Stojanović and
Dušan Vukajlović

The founding assembly was held on February 3, 1990, in Dom Omladine in Belgrade. The elected party president was Dragoljub Mićunović and the executive board was presided by Kosta Čavoški. Members participated in the first anti-government protests. In 1990 elections, the party was on ballot in 176 of 250 electoral districts, and won 7 assembly seats. Only several days prior to the elections, a group of 10 members, led by Nikola Milošević, left the party and formed the Serbian Liberal Party.

Recent events

Democratic Party was one of the founders and the biggest party of the Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS), and its member until the breakup of the coalition. DOS participated in Yugoslavian direct presidential elections in September 2000. Its candidate, Vojislav Koštunica, won the majority of votes. The election committee delayed proclamation of results and called for the second round, which ignited street protests in October 2000. The protests led to official recognition of Koštunica's victory.

In December 2000, elections for Serbian parliament were held and DOS won 64.7% of the votes, getting 176 of 250 seats. Zoran Đinđić, the president of Democratic Party at the time, was elected Prime Minister.

Relationships within DOS became strained, especially between Democratic Party and Koštunica's Democratic Party of Serbia. Eventually, Democratic Party of Serbia left the coalition and the government, while criticizing both the coalition and Democratic Party specifically. One of the criticisms was lack of fight against organized crime. To combat this criticism Zoran Đinđić promised in 2003 to fight against organized crime. Laws were introduced to establish framework.

Zoran Đinđić, the president of Democratic Party and the Prime Minister of Serbia was assassinated in March 2003. The assassination destabilized the government. Immediately after assassination state of emergence was declared by interim president Nataša Mićić. The government mounted operation “Sablja” (Sword). This police action was aimed at finding the assassins and was seen as a blow to organized crime, but a number of political opponents to Democratic Party and her government were arrested during this action in connection with mafia. Most were later freed. At the end of the operation most of suspects for assassination were arrested. The main suspect, Milorad Ulemek is currently on trial for murdering Prime Minister and has been sentenced for Ibarska magistrala crime to 40 years in jail. Some political opponents, but, Human Rights Watch ([link], [link], [link], [link]) as well as Amnesty International, too, accused government of human rights abuse during the operation. However government and proponents of the action point out that majority of the organizations sent to analyze situation during the operation including OSCE declared that operation was without breeches of human rights. Further more Serbia became member of European council during the action meaning that the country met required human right standard.

New prime minister Zoran Živković, also from Democratic Party, attempted to continue reforms in a fashion of his predecessor, but government was given no confidence vote at the end of the year 2003. New elections were scheduled for the end of 2003. Democratic party won 34 seats in the parliament. Democratic party did not enter the newly formed government led by Democratic Party of Serbia.

Boris Tadić was elected new president of Democratic party. He was nominated for the Serbian presidential elections in June 2004, and won with 53.7% votes in the second round, while Democratic party was still opposition in the parliament.

Čedomir Jovanović, vice-prime minister in previous government, was ejected from the party for his intention to make independent liberal democratic faction within DP. He criticized what he saw as Tadić's lenient and tolerant stance toward government which he saw as too conservative and unwilling to cooperate fully with ICTY. The main difference between liberal democratic faction and Democratic Party mainstream was at the economic basis: Democratic Party mainstream is social democrat, while liberal democratic faction was market liberal. On 5 November, 2005 liberal democratic faction became the Liberal Democratic Party. Jovanović has been elected for its first president.

In 2005 the Democratic Centre joined the Democratic Party.

External links

[Democratic Party] official site
[Boris Tadić website]

Mićunović \| Đinđić \| Tadić
Leaders of the Democratic Party (Serbia)

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