Democratic Party (Serbia)

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Democratic Party
Демократска странка
Demokratska stranka
Leader	Boris Tadić
Founded	1919
Headquarters	Krunska 69, Belgrade
Political ideology	Social democracy
International affiliation	Socialist International
European affiliation	Party of European Socialists
Colour(s)	Blue, Yellow
Website	www.ds.org.yu
Also about Serbian politics	Politics List of political parties Elections

The Democratic Party (Serbian: Демократска странка or Demokratska stranka, listen (help·info)) is the largest center-left political party in Serbia. It is a social democratic party.

Contents 1 History 1.1 Interwar years 1.2 World War II 1.3 1990s 1.4 Recent events 2 Policies 3 External links

[edit] History

[edit] Interwar years

Democratic Party (DP) 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 social-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 (DP) 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.

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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.

[edit] Recent events

The fall of Slobodan Milošević regime in 2000 occurred after street protests by hundreds of thousands of citizens. Democratic Party was the biggest party of the Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS) that won 64.7% of the votes, getting 176 of 250 seats. In 2003, Zoran Đinđić, the Prime Minister of Serbia, was assassinated. Immediately after the assassination, a state of emergency was declared and the government mounted Operation Sablja. Boris Tadić was elected new president of Democratic party in 2004. He was nominated for the Serbian presidential elections in the same year, and won it while Democratic party was still in opposition in parliament.

Democratic Party received 915,854 popular votes or 22.71%, and thus won 64 out of 250 seats in parliament in Serbian parliamentary election, 2007. 3 of its seats went to the Sanjak Democratic Party, which formed a club with DS under Dušan Petrović as president and Milan Marković as vice-president. At the first session of the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia the party mostly voted to refuse Martti Ahtisaari's proposal for Kosovo's solution.

[edit] 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.

[edit] External links

• Democratic Party official site
• Democratic Youth official site