The Serbian Renewal Movement (, abbr. SPO) is a
liberal and
monarchist
Monarchism is the advocacy of the system of monarchy or monarchical rule. A monarchist is an individual who supports this form of government independently of any specific monarch, whereas one who supports a particular monarch is a royalist. C ...
political party
A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular area's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology, ...
in
Serbia
, image_flag = Flag of Serbia.svg
, national_motto =
, image_coat = Coat of arms of Serbia.svg
, national_anthem = ()
, image_map =
, map_caption = Location of Serbia (gree ...
. It was founded in 1990 by writer
Vuk Drašković
Vuk Drašković ( sr-cyrl, Вук Драшковић, ; born 29 November 1946) is a Serbian writer and politician. He is the co-founder and former leader of the Serbian Renewal Movement, serving as president from 1990 to 2024. He also served as th ...
, who served as the party's president until 2024.
Aleksandar Cvetković is the incumbent leader.
History
Formation
Vuk Drašković
Vuk Drašković ( sr-cyrl, Вук Драшковић, ; born 29 November 1946) is a Serbian writer and politician. He is the co-founder and former leader of the Serbian Renewal Movement, serving as president from 1990 to 2024. He also served as th ...
was a writer for most of his life and he particularly became known in the 1980s due to his
nationalist
Nationalism is an idea or movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, it presupposes the existence and tends to promote the interests of a particular nation,Anthony D. Smith, Smith, A ...
-themed books.
He formed the Saint Sava Association in 1989 with
Mirko Jović,
Vojislav Šešelj
Vojislav Šešelj ( sr-Cyrl, Војислав Шешељ, ; born 11 October 1954) is a Serbian politician and convicted war criminal. He is the founder and president of the far-right Serbian Radical Party (SRS). Between 1998 and 2000, he was a D ...
, and
Veljko Guberina, which sought to promote nationalism in
Vojvodina
Vojvodina ( ; sr-Cyrl, Војводина, ), officially the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, is an Autonomous administrative division, autonomous province that occupies the northernmost part of Serbia, located in Central Europe. It lies withi ...
.
This association became a political party named
Serbian National Renewal (SNO) in January 1990.
Jović became the president of SNO and Drašković served along with as one of the vice-presidents of the party.
As the chief ideologist of SNO, Drašković drafted its plan on
expanding Serbia's borders which were based on historical and ethnic borders of the Serbs.
Alongside this, SNO also advocated for the
restoration of the monarchy and de-
Titoisation.
A schism inside SNO occurred in March 1990.
Jović began attacking Drašković due to his past membership in the
League of Communists of Yugoslavia
The League of Communists of Yugoslavia, known until 1952 as the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, was the founding and ruling party of SFR Yugoslavia. It was formed in 1919 as the main communist opposition party in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats ...
, while Drašković criticised Jović due to his pro-
Slobodan Milošević
Slobodan Milošević ( sr-Cyrl, Слободан Милошевић, ; 20 August 1941 – 11 March 2006) was a Yugoslav and Serbian politician who was the President of Serbia between 1989 and 1997 and President of the Federal Republic of Yugos ...
views.
Drašković created a faction inside SNO that with Šešelj, who at the time led the
Serbian Freedom Movement, merged to form the Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO) on 14 March 1990.
Drašković was chosen as the party's president.
At the time of the formation of SPO,
Yugoslavia
, common_name = Yugoslavia
, life_span = 1918–19921941–1945: World War II in Yugoslavia#Axis invasion and dismemberment of Yugoslavia, Axis occupation
, p1 = Kingdom of SerbiaSerbia
, flag_p ...
was still a
one-party state
A one-party state, single-party state, one-party system or single-party system is a governance structure in which only a single political party controls the ruling system. In a one-party state, all opposition parties are either outlawed or en ...
. However, after a
July 1990 referendum, Serbia adopted a
multi-party system
In political science, a multi-party system is a political system where more than two meaningfully-distinct political parties regularly run for office and win elections. Multi-party systems tend to be more common in countries using proportional ...
and SPO became a registered political party.
According to political scientist Vukašin Pavlović, SPO implemented elements of a
political movement
A political movement is a collective attempt by a group of people to change government policy or social values. Political movements are usually in opposition to an element of the status quo, and are often associated with a certain ideology. Some t ...
, rather than a
political party
A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular area's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology, ...
, after its formation.
1990–1994
Drašković and Šešelj were unable to cooperate together and in May 1990 Šešelj left SPO due to a dispute over whether to protest
Siniša Kovačević's play titled ''Saint Sava''.
Šešelj went on to form the
Serbian Chetnik Movement, whose registration was rejected, and then the
Serbian Radical Party (SRS).
After the July 1990 referendum,
first multi-party elections in Serbia were called to be held in December 1990. SPO believed that the referendum should have occurred once the multi-party elections ended and the
National Assembly of Serbia
The National Assembly ( sr-Cyrl-Latn, Народна скупштина, Narodna skupština, ), fully the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia (), is the unicameral legislature of Serbia. The assembly is composed of 250 deputies who are ...
was constituted.
Despite this, SPO decided to take part in the elections; Drašković was SPO's presidential candidate.
During the 1990 election campaign, SPO organised protests in opposition to the policies of
Radio Television of Serbia
The Serbian Broadcasting Corporation, more commonly referred to as Radio Television of Serbia (), or RTS (), is the state-owned public radio and television broadcaster of Serbia. RTS has four organizational units – radio, television, music pro ...
(RTS) and protests due to alleged electoral manipulation.
Together with another opposition party, the
Democratic Party (DS), SPO threatened to
boycott
A boycott is an act of nonviolent resistance, nonviolent, voluntary abstention from a product, person, organisation, or country as an expression of protest. It is usually for Morality, moral, society, social, politics, political, or Environmenta ...
the election due to the election conditions.
SPO sought to start its actions in towns and villages of the
Šumadija
Šumadija ( sr-Cyrl, Шумадија, ) is a geographical region in the central part of Serbia. The area used to be heavily covered with forests, hence the name (from ''šuma'' 'forest'). The city of Kragujevac is the administrative center of t ...
region; Drašković called
Valjevo
Valjevo (Serbian Cyrillic: Ваљево, ) is a List of cities in Serbia, city and the administrative center of the Kolubara District in western Serbia. According to the 2022 census, the city itself has a population of 56,145 while the city admini ...
his "political capital".
SPO did also campaign briefly in Kosovo, but was met with opposition from Milošević supporters.
Additionally, Drašković used nationalist rhetoric in his speeches, earning the nickname "King of the Streets" due to his fiery oratory skills.
Their campaign ended when a SPO activist was murdered by a
Socialist Party of Serbia
The Socialist Party of Serbia (, abbr. SPS) is a populist political party in Serbia. Ivica Dačić has led SPS as its president since 2006.
SPS was founded in 1990 as a merger of the League of Communists of Serbia and Socialist Alliance ...
(SPS) member.
Drašković won 16 per cent of the popular vote and was eventually defeated by Milošević in the first round of the election in a
landslide
Landslides, also known as landslips, rockslips or rockslides, are several forms of mass wasting that may include a wide range of ground movements, such as rockfalls, mudflows, shallow or deep-seated slope failures and debris flows. Landslides ...
.
SPO only won 19 seats in the National Assembly,
due to Serbia's new
first-past-the-post
First-past-the-post (FPTP)—also called choose-one, first-preference plurality (FPP), or simply plurality—is a single-winner voting rule. Voters mark one candidate as their favorite, or First-preference votes, first-preference, and the cand ...
electoral system, which favoured Milošević's SPS, the then-ruling and largest party of Serbia.
Another factor that contributed to SPO's failure at gathering more votes was that SPS also used nationalist rhetoric.
Drašković portrayed the election as a contest "between
Bolshevism
Bolshevism (derived from Bolshevik) is a revolutionary socialist current of Soviet Leninist and later Marxist–Leninist political thought and political regime associated with the formation of a rigidly centralized, cohesive and disciplined p ...
and democracy, the past and the future". Although a second round of the presidential elections did not occur, opposition parties did briefly gather around the
United Opposition of Serbia
The United Opposition of Serbia ( sr-cyrl, Удружена опозиција Србије, Udružena opozicija Srbije, abbr. UOPS) was a political coalition in Serbia.
It was formed in August 2020 as the direct successor of Alliance for S ...
coalition, signing a declaration in which they declared that citizens should vote for the opposition candidate in the second round, regardless of their party affiliation.
SPO was disappointed with government's domination in the media and together with DS, it announced a
protest for 9 March 1991.
Despite the government banning the gathering, demonstrators gathered in Belgrade; they were attacked by the police.
Drašković was eventually arrested and
Studio B and
B92 radio stations were closed down.
The protests increased in size and Milošević was met with pressure;
Drašković was released, Studio B and B92 were allowed to broadcast again, and the RTS director was sacked.
Author Robert Thomas said that Drašković came under criticism from certain opposition politicians due to not taking the advantage of the protests after his release.
After the protests, SPO went to form the shortly-lived
United Serbian Democratic Opposition with the
Serbian Liberal Party and
New Democracy–Movement for Serbia that existed up till late summer of 1991.
The
Democratic Movement of Serbia was formed in May 1992 as a political alliance made up primarily of SPO,
New Democracy
New Democracy, or the New Democratic Revolution, is a type of democracy in Marxism, based on Mao Zedong's Bloc of Four Social Classes theory in post-revolutionary China which argued originally that democracy in China would take a path that w ...
(ND),
Democratic Party of Serbia
The New Democratic Party of Serbia (, , abbr. NDSS), known as the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) until 2022, is a national-conservative political party in Serbia. Miloš Jovanović serves as the current president of NDSS.
DSS was formed as ...
(DSS). The political alliance however broke, and was dissolved in 1993.
1995–1997
The SPO was part of the "Together" (''Zajedno'') coalition in the
1996 parliamentary election which received 23.8% of the popular vote, losing to the
Socialist Party of Serbia
The Socialist Party of Serbia (, abbr. SPS) is a populist political party in Serbia. Ivica Dačić has led SPS as its president since 2006.
SPS was founded in 1990 as a merger of the League of Communists of Serbia and Socialist Alliance ...
(SPS). In 1997, Drašković ran twice for president but finished third in both elections. Its party won the third largest number of seats in that year's Serbian parliamentary elections. A dissident group inside the party abandoned the SPO and formed
New Serbia (NS) in 1997.
1998–2001
In early 1999, the SPO joined the
Slobodan Milošević
Slobodan Milošević ( sr-Cyrl, Слободан Милошевић, ; 20 August 1941 – 11 March 2006) was a Yugoslav and Serbian politician who was the President of Serbia between 1989 and 1997 and President of the Federal Republic of Yugos ...
-led government, and Drašković became a Yugoslav Deputy Prime Minister. The SPO had a place in Serbia's
Rambouillet Agreement
The Rambouillet Agreement, formally the Interim Agreement for Peace and Self-Government in Kosovo, was a proposed peace agreement between the delegation of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Republic of Serbia on the one hand and the del ...
delegation and held posts such as the Yugoslav Information Ministry to show a more pro-
Western
Western may refer to:
Places
*Western, Nebraska, a village in the US
*Western, New York, a town in the US
*Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western world, countries that id ...
face to the world in the run-up to
NATO's bombing campaign in 1999 against the country. In the midst of the war, Drašković and the SPO pulled out of the government, calling on Milošević to surrender to NATO.
The SPO participated in an attempt to overthrow Milošević in 1999, which faltered after Drašković broke off his alliance with opposition leader
Zoran Đinđić
Zoran Đinđić ( sr-Cyrl, Зоран Ђинђић, ; 1 August 1952 – 12 March 2003) was a Serbian politician and philosopher who served as the Prime Minister of Serbia, prime minister of Serbia from 2001 until Assassination of Zoran Đinđić, ...
. This caused the anti-Milošević elements to suggest that he was working for Milošević.
In 2000 presidential and parliamentary elections in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in which Milošević lost, the Serbian Renewal Movement overestimated its strength and ran independently, outside of the vast
Democratic Opposition of Serbia
The Democratic Opposition of Serbia ( sr-cyrl, Демократска oпозиција Cрбије, Demokratska opozicija Srbije, abbr. DOS) was a wide electoral alliance of political parties in Serbia, intent on ousting the ruling Socialist Par ...
coalition.
Vojislav Mihajlović, grandson of
Chetnik
The Chetniks,, ; formally the Chetnik Detachments of the Yugoslav Army, and also the Yugoslav Army in the Homeland; and informally colloquially the Ravna Gora Movement, was a Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Yugoslav royalist and Serbian nationalist m ...
commander
Draža Mihajlović, was its presidential candidate. He was opposed by
Vojislav Koštunica
Vojislav Koštunica ( sr-cyrl, Војислав Коштуница, ; born 24 March 1944) is a Serbian former politician who served as the last President of Serbia and Montenegro, president of FR Yugoslavia from 2000 to 2003 and as the Prime Min ...
of DOS,
Slobodan Milošević
Slobodan Milošević ( sr-Cyrl, Слободан Милошевић, ; 20 August 1941 – 11 March 2006) was a Yugoslav and Serbian politician who was the President of Serbia between 1989 and 1997 and President of the Federal Republic of Yugos ...
of the ruling SPS and
Tomislav Nikolić of the
Serbian Radical Party. The SPO's vote collapsed, with its traditional voters drawn by Kostunica's conservatism and by the fact that he was their best hope to remove Milošević from power.
There was talk before the 5. October changes of dissolving the
Mirko Marjanović government in Serbia and setting up a government with the Serbian Radical Party. Following the 5.October changes the SPO participated in a so-called national unity government that served effectively under DOS "coordinator"
Zoran Đinđić
Zoran Đinđić ( sr-Cyrl, Зоран Ђинђић, ; 1 August 1952 – 12 March 2003) was a Serbian politician and philosopher who served as the Prime Minister of Serbia, prime minister of Serbia from 2001 until Assassination of Zoran Đinđić, ...
. In December 2000, after two months of DOS rule, Serbian parliamentary elections were held. The SPO, once the strongest opposition, failed to enter the parliament.
2002–2007
In 2003, Drašković called for the re-establishment of a
parliamentary monarchy
Constitutional monarchy, also known as limited monarchy, parliamentary monarchy or democratic monarchy, is a form of monarchy in which the monarch exercises their authority in accordance with a constitution and is not alone in making decisions. ...
in Serbia as the best means for its
European integration
European integration is the process of political, legal, social, regional and economic integration of states wholly or partially in Europe, or nearby. European integration has primarily but not exclusively come about through the European Union ...
.
The party fought the December 2003 legislative
elections
An election is a formal group decision-making process whereby a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office.
Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has operated ...
in a coalition with
New Serbia. The coalition received 7.7% of the popular vote and 22 seats in parliament. 13 of these were allocated to the SPO. In turn, the coalition had dispatched 8 deputies into the federal
Assembly of Serbia and Montenegro.
SPO-NS became part of Vojislav Koštunica's first elected cabinet. Vuk Drašković was selected for Minister of Foreign Affairs.
In 2004, nine members of the National Assembly left SPO, citing their disapproval with the party's leadership. Together with seven members of SPO's main board and two vice-presidents of SPO, they formalised the
Serbian Democratic Renewal Movement (SDPO).
One of the 4 was then bought off by the political tycoon
Bogoljub Karić
Bogoljub Karić ( sr-Cyrl, Богољуб Карић, ; born 17 January 1954) is a Serbian businessman and politician.
Early life and education
Bogoljub was born to Janićije Karić and Danica Kuzmanović. He earned a degree in Geography at the ...
to form
his party's list.
The SPO participated in the
2007 election independently and received 3.33% of the vote, winning no seats.
2008–2012
In the
2008 elections the SPO took part in the
For a European Serbia
For a European Serbia () was a big tent and pro-EU electoral alliance, led by Boris Tadić, which participated in the 2008 Serbian parliamentary election. It received 38.42% of the popular vote, translating into 102 seats in the 250-seat Parliamen ...
coalition under President
Boris Tadić
Boris Tadić, (born 15 January 1958) is a Serbian politician who served as the president of Serbia from 2004 to 2012.
Born in Sarajevo, he graduated from the University of Belgrade with a degree in psychology. He later worked as a journalist ...
, receiving 38.42% of the vote and 102 seats in parliament. Four seats were given to the SPO along with the Ministry of Diaspora portfolio.
Drašković resigned as party leader on 12 July and was succeeded by
Aleksandar Cvetković.
Ideology
During the 1990s, the Serbian Renewal Movement was orientated towards
ultranationalism
Ultranationalism, or extreme nationalism, is an extremist form of nationalism in which a country asserts or maintains hegemony, supremacy, or other forms of control over other nations (usually through violent coercion) to pursue its specific i ...
and
irredentism
Irredentism () is one State (polity), state's desire to Annexation, annex the territory of another state. This desire can be motivated by Ethnicity, ethnic reasons because the population of the territory is ethnically similar to or the same as the ...
, and it supported
revisionism and
anti-communism
Anti-communism is Political movement, political and Ideology, ideological opposition to communism, communist beliefs, groups, and individuals. Organized anti-communism developed after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia, and it reached global ...
.
During that period, it was positioned on the
right-wing
Right-wing politics is the range of political ideologies that view certain social orders and hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically supporting this position based on natural law, economics, authority, property ...
on the political spectrum. It was also characterised as a
right-wing populist
Right-wing populism, also called national populism and right populism, is a political ideology that combines right-wing politics with populist rhetoric and themes. Its rhetoric employs anti- elitist sentiments, opposition to the Establishm ...
party, and it was backed by the
Serbian Orthodox Church
The Serbian Orthodox Church ( sr-Cyrl-Latn, Српска православна црква, Srpska pravoslavna crkva) is one of the autocephalous (ecclesiastically independent) Eastern Orthodoxy, Eastern Orthodox Eastern Orthodox Church#Constit ...
. It also held
conservative
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy and ideology that seeks to promote and preserve traditional institutions, customs, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civiliza ...
views.
Although after the 2000s, the party rejected its radical nationalist past and
statism
In political science, statism or etatism (from French, ''état'' 'state') is the doctrine that the political authority of the state is legitimate to some degree. This may include economic and social policy, especially in regard to taxation ...
, and embraced
liberal-democratic
Liberal democracy, also called Western-style democracy, or substantive democracy, is a form of government that combines the organization of a democracy with ideas of liberal political philosophy. Common elements within a liberal democracy are: ...
elements. It also shifted to
liberalism
Liberalism is a Political philosophy, political and moral philosophy based on the Individual rights, rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, the right to private property, and equality before the law. ...
,
and
economic liberalism
Economic liberalism is a political and economic ideology that supports a market economy based on individualism and private property in the means of production. Adam Smith is considered one of the primary initial writers on economic liberalism ...
, and it adopted a more moderate right, and
centre-right
Centre-right politics is the set of right-wing politics, right-wing political ideologies that lean closer to the political centre. It is commonly associated with conservatism, Christian democracy, liberal conservatism, and conservative liberalis ...
position. It was also described as moderate nationalist during that period.
Since its inception, it has been described as
monarchist
Monarchism is the advocacy of the system of monarchy or monarchical rule. A monarchist is an individual who supports this form of government independently of any specific monarch, whereas one who supports a particular monarch is a royalist. C ...
,
and it advocates for the restoration of
parliamentary monarchy
Constitutional monarchy, also known as limited monarchy, parliamentary monarchy or democratic monarchy, is a form of monarchy in which the monarch exercises their authority in accordance with a constitution and is not alone in making decisions. ...
. Since the late 2000s, it has been supportive of
accession of Serbia to the European Union
Serbia applied to join the European Union (EU) in 2009 and has been a candidate for membership since 2012 (along with nine other states), while negotiations started in 2014 and are still ongoing. Serbia is the largest country in Southeast Eu ...
and
NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ; , OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental Transnationalism, transnational military alliance of 32 Member states of NATO, member s ...
, and in the early 2010s, it shifted its support towards the recognition of
Kosovo
Kosovo, officially the Republic of Kosovo, is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe with International recognition of Kosovo, partial diplomatic recognition. It is bordered by Albania to the southwest, Montenegro to the west, Serbia to the ...
.
Organisation
International cooperation
During the party's early history, when SPO still favoured a Greater Serbian policy, Drašković intended SPO to also have branches in
Yugoslavia's constituent republics where Serbs were a large minority, such as in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
There was a proposal to form SPO branches in Bosnia and Herzegovina at the congress in October 1990, however, Drašković rejected it, stating that "such a move would only serve to divide the Serbian voters"; he described
Radovan Karadžić
Radovan Karadžić ( sr-Cyrl, Радован Караџић, ; born 19 June 1945) is a Serbs of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosnian Serb politician who was convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes by the International Criminal ...
's
Serb Democratic Party as a "sister-party to our movement".
SPO did eventually nominate candidates for the
1990 Bosnian municipal elections and only one SPO candidate was elected in the Assembly of
Nevesinje
Nevesinje ( sr-cyrl, Невесиње) is a town and municipality in Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina. As of 2013, the town has a population of 5,162 inhabitants, while the municipality has 12,961 inhabitants.
Geography
The municipality o ...
.
List of presidents
Electoral performance
Serbia
Parliamentary elections
ImageSize = width:900 height:70
PlotArea = width:800 height:50 left:20 bottom:20
DateFormat = dd/mm/yyyy
Period = from:01/01/1990 till:31/12/2024
TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal
ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:1 start:01/01/1990
Legend = columns:3 left:40 top:75 columnwidth:90
# there is no automatic collision detection,
# so shift texts up or down manually to avoid overlap
Colors=
id:Government value:green legend:Government
id:Opposition value:red legend:Opposition
id:Support value:yellow legend:Support
Define $dx = 25 # shift text to right side of bar
Define $dy = -1 # adjust height
PlotData=
bar:Govern. color:blue width:25 mark:(line,black) align:center
from:14/03/1990 till:03/03/2004 shift:($dx,$dy) color:Opposition
from:03/03/2004 till:15/05/2007 shift:($dx,$dy) color:Government
from:15/05/2007 till:07/07/2008 shift:($dx,$dy) color:Opposition
from:07/07/2008 till:27/07/2012 shift:($dx,$dy) color:Government
from:27/07/2012 till:27/04/2014 shift:($dx,$dy) color:Opposition
from:27/04/2014 till:end shift:($dx,$dy) color:Support
Presidential elections
Bosnia and Herzegovina
References
External links
Official website**
{{Authority control
1990 establishments in Serbia
Anti-communism in Serbia
Centre-right parties in Europe
Conservative parties in Serbia
Eastern Orthodox political parties
Liberal parties in Serbia
Monarchist parties in Serbia
Political parties established in 1990
Political parties in Yugoslavia
Pro-European political parties in Serbia
Right-wing parties in Europe
Right-wing populism in Serbia
Serb nationalist parties
Serbian irredentism