| Socialist Party of Serbia Социјалистичка Партија Србије Socijalistička Partija Srbije |
|
|---|---|
| President | Ivica Dačić |
| Founder | Slobodan Milošević |
| Founded | 27 June 1990 |
| Preceded by | League of Communists of Serbia |
| Headquarters | Belgrade, Serbia |
| Ideology | Democratic socialism (self-identification) Serbian nationalism |
| Political position | Centre-left (self-identification) |
| International affiliation | None |
| European affiliation | None |
| Official colors | Red; red, blue, white (Serbian tricolour) |
| National Assembly |
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| Website | |
| http://www.sps.org.rs/ | |
| Party flag | |
The Socialist Party of Serbia (Serbian: Социјалистичка партија Србије, Socijalistička partija Srbije) is officially a democratic socialist political party in Serbia.[1] It is also widely recognized as a de facto Serbian nationalist party, though the party itself does not officially acknowledge this.[2][3][4] The party officially describes itself as a centre-left on the left-right political spectrum, however this claimed position has been rebuked by critics of the party.[5]
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It was founded on July 27, 1990 by Slobodan Milošević as a merger of Milošević's League of Communists of Serbia (Serbian section of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia), and the Socialist Alliance of the Working People of Serbia (the Serbian branch of the Socialist Alliance of the Working People of Yugoslavia),[6] 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 dependents (the unemployed and the retired).[7] 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; those with a psychological disposition of loyalty to authority and to Milošević's style of rule.[8] 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.[9] 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.[10] Anyone who went against policy as defined by the party leadership could face sanctions or expulsion.[11]
The SPS has officially utilized leftist rhetoric throughout its existence, though it has enacted policies that have gone against leftist ideology, such as abolishing the system of worker participation in management that was enacted during the Communist era and workers rights are considered to have been significantly curtailed from 1994 to 1997, this view was held by the Syndicate Alliance of Yugoslavia in 1996 on the SPS-led government's bills on employment and strikes.[12]
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.[13]
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.[14] 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.[15] 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.[16]
The party won the first elections in Serbia with 194 out of 250 seats and 77.6% of the popular vote.[17] 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 percent 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 Serbian parliamentary election, 2008, 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. Coalition won 23 seats with 313,896 or 7.58 percent of votes. SPS and its coalition partners entered post-election coalition with For a European Serbia and formed new Government of Serbia. SPS have First Deputy of the government and 4 minister while PUPS have 1 minister.New ideology of SPS is social democracy from December 11, 2010.
The SPS upon its foundation, was the heir to the League of Communists of Serbia and more particularly the agenda of Serbian President Slobodan Milošević, who had come to power promising the strengthening of Serb influence in Yugoslavia by reducing the autonomy of the provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina within Serbia, and had demanded a one-member-one vote system for the League of Communists of Yugoslavia which would have given a numerical majority to the Serbs. This nationalist course was a factor in the splintering of the Yugoslav Communist party, and caused the Serbian communist elite to take part in the creation of the Socialist Party of Serbia.
The political programme of the SPS has stated its intention to develop "Serbia as a socialist republic, founded on law and social justice."[18] The party made economic reforms outside of Marxist ideology such as recognizing all forms of property and intended a progression to a market economy while at the same time advocating some regulation for the purposes of "solidarity, equality, and social security".[19] In power however, the party enacted policies that were negative to workers rights, such as ending the Communists' worker participation programs, and in 1996, the party passed bills on employment and strikes which another left-wing party, the Syndicate Alliance of Yugoslavia criticized as being equivalent to Mussolini's Labour Charter.[20] Beginning in its political programme of 1992, the SPS has supported a mixed economy, stating: "the Socialist Party of Serbia advocates a modern, mixed economy representing a synthesis of those elements of liberal and socialist models that have so far proved to be successful in the history of modern society and in our own development."[21] The SPS declared that the mixed economy would include both market economy but also "a certain degree of state regulation, transformed social ownership, and also the unimpeded transformation into private, cooperative, and state ownership".[22]
Officially the party endorsed the equality of all the Yugoslav peoples and ethnic minorities on the principle of full equality.[23]
From 1990 to 1993, the party endorsed supporting the Serbs in Bosnia & Herzegovina and Croatia who wished to remain in Yugoslavia. A primary objective in 1990 was to keep the respective areas within the federation. As Croatia and Bosnia declared independence, the involvement by the SPS as a ruling party in Belgrade had become more devoted to helping the external Serbs run their own independent entities. The SPS was in coalition with the Nationalist Serbian Radical Party (SRS) at the time.[20] Milošević responded to press questions of whether the Serbian government approved the Bosnian Serbs, by claiming that the Serbian government did not directly support the Srpska government or Serb military forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina in their war but claimed that Serbs had the right to self-determination. Fellow SPS member and government official Borisav Jović - in the 1995 BBC Documentary "The Death of Yugoslavia" - denied this and claimed Milošević did endorse the transfer of Bosnian Serb federal army forces to the Bosnian Serb Army in 1992 to help achieve Serb independence from the Alija Izetbegović government of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Upon the Republic of Macedonia seceding in 1991, the Milosevic government declared that Macedonians were an "artificial nation" and Serbia allied with Greece against the Republic of Macedonia, even suggesting a partition of the Republic of Macedonia between the FRY and Greece.[24] Subsequent interviews with government officials involved in these affairs have revealed that Milošević planned to arrest the Republic of Macedonia's political leadership and replace it with politicians loyal to Serbia.[24] Milošević demanded the self-determination of Serbs in the Republic of Macedonia and did not recognize the independence of the Republic of Macedonia until 1996.[24]
After 1993, the SPS broke away from the coalition with the Radicals and officially opposed the Bosnian Serb government of Radovan Karadžić by passing economic sanctions against it, as Karadžić was opposing peace initiatives and the party officially criticised the discriminatory nationalism of Karadžić's administration.[20]
In 1995, Milošević and the SPS endorsed peace in Bosnia which caused the U.S. to endorse Milošević's presence as representative for the Bosnian Serbs for the signing of the Dayton Peace Accord. In the aftermath, the SPS lost many local elections in 1996 in which it refused to admit, causing massive protests against Milošević's government.[20] The party continued to falter and Milošević resigned as Serbian President to run for Yugoslav President in 1997, which he won.
The SPS, unlike the right-wing nationalist Serbian Radical Party, participated in negotiations along with a number of other Serbian political parties with ethnic Albanian politicians in Kosovo to resolve outstanding disputes between the ethnic Albanian population of Kosovo and the federal government in an attempt to stop the Kosovo War.[25] The SPS however was unwilling to grant secession of any territory from Yugoslavia.
From 1998 onwards, the SPS returned to its more successful coalition with the Serbian Radical Party as Kosovo separatism was on the rise.[20]
The SPS showed initial opposition to the flag adopted in 2004 for Serbia, which SPS leader Ivica Dačić claimed looked "monarchist".[26] However due to the popularity of the flag in Serbia, SPS opposition has disappeared and now uses the flag in its advertising.[27]
The Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia reports that in reaction to the 2008 declaration of Kosovo independence, SPS leader Ivica Dačić said he would call for a ban on all political parties and NGOs in Serbia which recognise Kosovo’s independence.[28]
Under Milošević's government critics have accused the SPS of utilizing organized crime to aide it, such as utilizing blackmail, endorsing assassination of political opponents (such as former Serbian President Ivan Stambolić), providing recruits for paramilitary forces during the Yugoslav Wars, and profiteering from illicit drug and oil trade.[29]
The party received 1,000,000 barrels (160,000 m3) worth of oil vouchers in the United Nations Oil-for-Food Programme, according to the paper "The Beneficiaries of Saddam's Oil Vouchers: The List of 270".[30]
Until the final dissolution of a federal Yugoslav state in 2006, the Socialist Party of Serbia held close ties with the Yugoslav Left, a coalition of left-wing and communist factions led by Miloševićs wife. The SPS has held close ties with the various political parties led by Momir Bulatović who had been installed as President of Montenegro with Milosević's aide, the SPS supported the Democratic Party of Socialists of Montenegro until Bulatović's ousting in 1998, Socialist People's Party of Montenegro under Bulatović from 1998 until his ousting in 2000, and the last one to be led by Bulatović is the People's Socialist Party of Montenegro. The SPS holds ties with a branch party in the Republic of Srpska in Bosnia & Herzegovina, the Socialist Party of Republika Srpska which was founded in 1993.[31] After the Dayton Accord, this party became a major opponent to the regime of Radovan Karadžić.[32] In the short-lived enclave Serb state of the Republic of Serbian Krajina in Croatia, the SPS supported the Serbian Party of Socialists and particularly the election bid of Milan Martić for President of Serbian Krajina in 1993.
The SPS wants to join the Socialist International. In May 2008, Ivica Dačić travelled to Athens to meet President of Socialist International George Papandreou. During this meeting, Papandreou said that Socialist International was ready to initiate the process for the SPS's membership.[33] However there is still some opposition within Socialist International to inviting the SPS, notably from the Social Democratic Party of Bosnia and Herzegovina.[34]
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