Socialist Labour Party of Croatia

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Socialist Labour Party of Croatia (Croatian: Socijalistička radnička partija Hrvatske, also translated Socialist Workers' Party) is a Croatian political party with no parliamentary representation. It is considered to be the leftmost of registered parties in Croatian politics, and has around 1600 members, which makes it the largest socialist organization in Croatia.

1 Ideology
2 Publications
3 History
4 Miscellaneous
5 Party officials
6 See also
7 External links

[edit] Ideology

In theory, the Party is the meeting point of many different leftist ideologies. In fact, its political platform could be described as democratic socialist and eurocommunist, influenced by Luxembourgism, council communism, Titoism and the New Left.

The Party emphasizes the importance of worker self-management and participatory democracy.

Defending the good name of Yugoslav resistance movement during the World War II is also one of the key issues.

[edit] Publications

The official paper is called News from the left (Croatian: Novosti s ljevice).

Party organization in Split publishes its own paper - The Carnation (Croatian: Gariful).

[edit] History

The Party was formed in 1997 by a group of leftists gathered around the newspaper Croatian Left (Croatian: Hrvatska ljevica) and its chief editor Stipe Šuvar. SLP filled a hole on Croatian political left after Social Democratic Union lost influence and members and Social Democratic Action moved more to the center.

Fist elections it contested in were the parliamentary elections 2000. It got 18,863 votes (0,66%).

After the elections, a group of members from the Socialist Youth (Croatia), the Party youth wing, left to form Green Left of Croatia. A strong anti-authoritarian, pro-direct democracy prevails in the youth wing of the SLP. It's official motto is "Never Slaves, Never Masters!".

In local elections in 2002, SLP managed to win some seats in smaller, ethnically mixed communities, such as Daruvar, Donji Lapac, Vrhovine etc.

The party contested again in parliamentary elections 2003 and got 15,515 votes (0,59%).

In 2004 Stipe Šuvar resigned as Party President and Ivan Plješa was elected the new President.

Shortly after, a minority of members left to form Socialist Party of Croatia - Left Alternative, mostly due to personal disputes. The activist core, including the youth wing and the entire editorial board of Croatian Left (which worked beside the late Stipe Šuvar) is still a part of the SLP.

On last local elections in 2004, SLP formed a joint list with Social Democratic Union, New Alternative Party - Green Movement, Green Left of Croatia and Green Party but did not win any seats in local or regional Assemblies, although it came close in a few bigger towns (like Šibenik and Pula). A "United Left" election list is planned for the future.

[edit] Miscellaneous

The youth section of SLP is called Young Socialists.

Party sympathizers include some of Croatian most famous intellectuals such as Predrag Matvejević, Slobodan Šnajder, Lordan Zafranović, Rade Šerbedžija, Izet Hajdarhodžić etc. Milan Kangrga was a member, but left the party after the death of Stipe Šuvar. The party's Advisory Council consists of more than a 100 academics, writers, actors, publishers, journalists and entrepreneurs.