Democratic Party (Serbia)
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The Democratic Party (Serbian: Демократска странка or Demokratska stranka) is the largest center-left political party in Serbia. It is a social democratic party, and a consultive member of the Socialist international.
Contents |
History
Interwar years
Democratic Party was founded in 1919 after the formation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. The Independent Radical Party merged with Croatian and Slovenian parties to establish the liberal DP. 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 majority of votes in the first elections held in 1920, and until 1929 they were in and out of government ( either independently or in coalition) or in opposition. 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.
World War II
Following Yugoslavian occupation by Germany in 1941, most of the party leadership fled to England. The ones who stayed fought either along Chetniks or Partisans.
In 1945 the leadership returned to Yugoslavia, but the Democratic Party called for a boycott of communist-organized elections in the same year. After the elections the Communist Party led by Josip Broz Tito banned the Democratic Party. The members were persecuted and many, including Milan Grol, arrested and sentenced to long terms in prison. One of the sentenced individuals was Borislav Pekić.
1990s
In 1990 Democratic Party was re-established by the few remaining members from the 1940s as well as a new generation of members. Dragoljub Mićunović was the first elected party president. Members participated in the first anti-government protests later in the year. The party won seven assembly seats in the December 1990 elections.
Zoran Đinđić was the second president of the party, elected at the party conference in January 1994. On 21 February 1997 he was elected Mayor of Belgrade following more than three months of peaceful protest marches by hundreds of thousands of citizens protesting against blatant vote rigging by Slobodan Milošević and his cronies.
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 Yugoslav presidential elections in September 2000. Its candidate, Vojislav Koštunica, won the majority of votes. The election committee delayed proclamation of results and called for a second round of voting, which ignited street protests by hundreds of thousands of citizens in October 2000. The protests led to official recognition of Koštunica's victory on 5 October 2000.
In December 2000, the 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 the Democratic Party and Koštunica's Democratic Party of Serbia. Eventually, the 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 a legal framework for this.
In March 2003, Zoran Đinđić, the president of the Democratic Party and the Prime Minister of Serbia, was assassinated. The assassination destabilized the government. Immediately after the assassination, a state of emergency 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 the Democratic Party and its 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 accused government of human rights abuse during the operation but government and proponents of the action pointed out that Serbia became member of Council of Europe during the action and that majority of the organizations sent to analyze situation during the operation including the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe declared that operation was without breeches of human rights.Some organisations disagree, notably Human Rights Watch([1], [2], [3], [4]) and Amnesty International. They are especially critical of the fact that some suspected criminals were interrogated without a lawyer beeing present.
New prime minister Zoran Živković, also of the 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. The Democratic party did not enter the newly formed government led by the 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, the while Democratic party was still in opposition in parliament.
Čedomir Jovanović, vice-prime minister in the previous government, was ejected from the party for his intention to form an independent liberal democratic faction within the DP. He criticized what he saw as Tadić's lenient and tolerant stance towards a government which he saw as too conservative and unwilling to cooperate fully with ICTY.On 5 November, 2005 liberal democratic faction became the Liberal Democratic Party. Jovanović has been elected for its first president.
In 2004 the Democratic Centre party led by Dragoljub Mićunović joined the Democratic Party.
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, and transportation, energy and telecommunications infrastructure.
- They support social solidarity.
- Government should maintain welfare programs.
- They encourage creation of unions.
External links
- Democratic Party official site
- Democratic Youth official site
Categories
Political parties in Serbia