The Serb Democratic Party (SDS, Serbian Cyrillic: Српска демократска странка (СДС)) was a minor political party established in Serbia in 2011 and mostly active in the province of Vojvodina. The party won a single seat in the Assembly of Vojvodina in the 2016 provincial election on the list of the Serbian Progressive Party, after which time it became inactive.

History and ideology

According to the party's historical website, the SDS was founded in late August 2011 after a founding meeting in Novi Sad.[1] It associated itself with the legacy of SDS in Croatia and the SDS in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and its stated purpose was to seek unity among the Serbian people and to end what it described as the dissolution of Serbia. At the time of its founding, the SDS called for the organization and co-ordination of organizations representing Serb refugees from Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo and Metohija.[2]

Dragan Dašić was selected as the party's president at a meeting in Subotica in February 2012,[3] and the SDS subsequently fielded its own electoral list in the 2012 Vojvodina provincial election.[4] It received less than one per cent of the popular vote, well below the threshold for representation in the assembly.

After a period of limited activity, the SDS re-constituted its executive at a February 2016 meeting in Novi Sad. Entrepreneur Branislav Švonja was selected as its leader, with Zoran Subotić as the party's organizer for Vojvodina and Radivoj Prodanović as the president of its city board in Novi Sad. On becoming leader, Švonja said that the new SDS followed in the tradition of Jovan Rašković's historical SDS in Croatia (before it was taken over by hardline elements) and that it was planning to contest the upcoming 2016 provincial election and the concurrent 2016 local elections as part of the coalition around the Serbian Progressive Party.[5] Subotić ultimately appeared on the Progressive Party's list for the provincial assembly and was elected when it won a majority victory.[6]

The SDS became inactive after this time and may have been disestablished entirely. Subotić became the Vojvodina president of a group called the Community of Serbs during his four-year term in the provincial assembly.[7] In the 2020 local elections, he was elected to the Novi Sad city assembly as a member of Aleksandar Šapić's Serbian Patriotic Alliance.

Švonja was arrested in 2017 due to the activities of a company he had founded. Media coverage of his arrest drew attention to the fact that he had previously been convicted of vote-buying for the SDS in an off-year municipal election in Odžaci in 2013.[8] One report from this period described him as having been "involved in politics through various semi-phantom parties and movements" in both Serbia and Croatia over a period of several years.[9] He subsequently became the leader of the Association of Serbs from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia.[10]

References

  1. ↑ Вести СДС Archived 2012-12-21 at the Wayback Machine, Serb Democratic Party, accessed 27 April 2021.
  2. ↑ Инфо Archived 2016-04-15 at the Wayback Machine, Serb Democratic Party, accessed 27 April 2021.
  3. ↑ "Izabran Glavni odbor Srpske demokratske stranke", subotica.com, 22 February 2012, accessed 27 April 2021.
  4. ↑ "DS: U Vojvodini "Izbor za bolji život" vodi na svim nivoima", Radio Television of Vojvodina, 6 May 2012, accessed 27 April 2021.
  5. ↑ "Srpska demokratska stranka posle tri godine ispočetka", Radio Television of Vojvodina, 28 February 2016, accessed 24 April 2021.
  6. ↑ Subotić received the sixtieth position on the list and was elected when it won sixty-three out of 120 mandates. See Изборне листе за изборе за посланике у Скупштину Аутономне покрајине Војводине (Изборна листа 1 - АЛЕКСАНДАР ВУЧИЋ – СРБИЈА ПОБЕЂУЈЕ Изборна листа), Избори 2016, Provincial Election Commission, Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, accessed 7 July 2020.
  7. ↑ НАШ ТИМ, Community of Serbs, accessed 24 April 2021.
  8. ↑ "Branislav Švonja Arrested", Center for Investigative Journalism of Serbia, 10 March 2017.
  9. ↑ "Uhapšen Branislav Švonja, direktor pokrajinskog Fonda za izbeglice", 021.rs, 10 March 2017, accessed 27 April 2021.
  10. ↑ "Branislav Švonja: Ni jedno značajnije pitanje položaja Srba u Hrvatskoj nije rešeno", KTV Television, 15 August 2019, accessed 27 April 2021.
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