Serb Democratic Party (Bosnia and Herzegovina)

The Serb Democratic Party (Serbian: Српска демократска странка/Srpska demokratska stranka or СДС/SDS) is a Serb political party in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Its current leader is Milan Miličević.

Serb Democratic Party
Српска демократска странка
Srpska demokratska stranka
PresidentMilan Miličević
FounderRadovan Karadžić
Founded12 July 1990 (12 July 1990)
HeadquartersPale, Istočno Sarajevo
Ideology
Formerly:
Political positionCentre-right[3] to right-wing[4][5]

Formerly:

Far-right
HoR BiH
2 / 42
HoP BiH
1 / 15
NA RS
12 / 83
Website
www.sdsrs.com

In the parliamentary elections of October 2006, the SDS lost its status as the leading party in Republika Srpska and the main Serb party in Bosnia and Herzegovina to the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD), led by the president of Republika Srpska Milorad Dodik.[6] Despite making minor gains in the 2010 and 2014 elections, by 2018 the party had fallen to below 20% of the parliament, the lowest seat standing in its history.

The party is under sanctions from the United States for "failing to arrest and turn over war crimes suspects to an international tribunal." The sanctions prohibit any transfer of funds and material from the United States to the SDS and vice versa.[7][8] The party is on the list of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons by the Office of Foreign Assets Control U.S. agency.[9]

History

Establishment

Radovan Karadžić founded the Serb Democratic Party in 1990. The party aimed at unifying the Bosnian Serb community, as Jovan Rašković's Serb Democratic Party did with the Serbs in Croatia, and staying part of Yugoslavia (as the "Third Yugoslavia" with Serbia and Montenegro) in the event of secession by those two republics from the federation.[10]

1991

Throughout September 1991, the SDS began to establish various "Serb Autonomous Regions" throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina. After the Bosnian parliament voted on sovereignty on 15 October 1991, a separate Serb Assembly was founded on 24 October 1991 in Banja Luka, in order to exclusively represent the Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The following month, Bosnian Serbs held a referendum which resulted in an overwhelming vote in favor of staying in a federal state with Serbia and Montenegro, as part of Yugoslavia. In December 1991, a top-secret document entitled ‘For the organization and activity of organs of the Serbs people in Bosnia-Herzegovina in extraordinary circumstances’ was drawn up by the SDS leadership. This was a centralized program for the takeover of each municipality in the country, through the creation of shadow governments and para-governmental structures through various "crisis headquarters", and by preparing loyal Serbs for the takeover in co-ordination with the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA).[11]

Ideology

Historically, the party had a strong ultranationalist,[12][13] separatist[13][1] and Islamophobic ideology. Recently, the party switched from far-right and adopted more moderate conservative views, with some of those views even going in favor of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a whole, and not just the Republic of Srpska. Perhaps one of the greatest promoters of that approach is Dragan Mektić, one of the party's high-ranking officials.

List of presidents
No. Name
(Birth–Death)		 Portrait Term of office
1 Radovan Karadžić
(born 1945)		12 July 199019 July 1996
2 Aleksa Buha
(born 1939)		19 July 19961 July 1998
3 Dragan Kalinić
(born 1948)		1 July 199820 July 2004
4 Dragan Čavić
(born 1958)		20 July 200415 December 2006
5 Mladen Bosić
(born 1961)		15 December 20068 October 2016
6 Vukota Govedarica
(born 1976)		14 October 201630 June 2019
7 Mirko Šarović
(born 1956)		30 June 201912 November 2022
8 Milan Miličević
(born 1963)		12 November 2022Incumbent

Electoral results

Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Assembly of the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Year Leader Popular vote  % # of seats Government
1990 Radovan Karadžić 590,431 26.14
72 / 240
 Coalition
Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Year Leader Popular vote  % HoR Seat change HoP Seat change Government
1996 Aleksa Buha 578,723 24.11
9 / 42
 New
5 / 15
 New Coalition
1998 Dragan Kalinić 162,721 9.43
4 / 42
 Decrease 5
1 / 15
 Decrease 4 Opposition
2000 248,579 16.68
6 / 42
 Increase 2
1 / 15
 Steady 0 Opposition
2002 172,544 14.04
5 / 42
 Decrease 1
3 / 15
 Increase 2 Coalition
2006 Dragan Čavić 108,616 7.69
3 / 42
 Decrease 2
1 / 15
 Decrease 2 Opposition
2010 Mladen Bosić 137,844 8.40
4 / 42
 Increase 1
1 / 15
 Steady 0 Coalition (2010–2013)
Opposition (2013–2014)
2014 211,562 12.97
5 / 42
 Increase 1
2 / 15
 Increase 1 Coalition
2018[lower-alpha 1] Vukota Govedarica 162,414 9.80
3 / 42
 Decrease 2
1 / 15
 Decrease 1 Opposition
2022 Mirko Šarović 112,250 7.07
2 / 42
 Decrease 1
1 / 15
 Steady 0 Opposition
  1. Run in coalition with NDP, NS and SRS.

National Assembly of Republika Srpska
National Assembly of Republika Srpska
Year Leader Popular vote  % of popular vote # of seats Seat change Coalition Government
1991 Radovan Karadžić MPs that left the Bosnian parliament
72 / 83
 — — Majority
1996 Aleksa Buha 568,980 52.3%
45 / 83
 Decrease 27 — Majority
1997 209,767 28.9%
24 / 83
 Decrease 21 — Opposition
1998 Dragan Kalinić 160,594 21.7%
19 / 83
 Decrease 5 — Opposition
2000 226,226 36.1%
31 / 83
 Increase 12 — Coalition
2002 159,164 31.2%
26 / 83
 Decrease 5 — Coalition
2006 Dragan Čavić 103,035 18.27%
17 / 83
 Decrease 9 — Opposition
2010 Mladen Bosić 120,136 18.97%
18 / 83
 Increase 1 — Opposition
2014 173,824 26.26%
21 / 83
 Increase 3 With

SRS RS

 Opposition
2018 Vukota Govedarica 123,515 18.04%
16 / 83
 Decrease 5 With

SRS RS

 Opposition
2022 Mirko Šarović 95,648 14.95 %
13 / 83
 Decrease 3 — Opposition

Presidential elections
Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Election year # Candidate Votes  % Note Elected?
1996 Steady 1st Momčilo Krajišnik 690,646 67.3% — Yes
1998 Decrease 2nd Momčilo Krajišnik 314,236 44.7% — No
2002 Increase 1st Mirko Šarović 180,212 35.5% — Yes
2006 Decrease 2nd Mladen Bosić 130,824 24.2% — No
2010 Steady 2nd Mladen Ivanić 285,951 47.31% Support No
2014 Increase 1st Mladen Ivanić 318,196 48.71% Support Yes
2018 Decrease 2nd Mladen Ivanić 292,065 42.74% Support No
2022 Steady 2nd Mirko Šarović 224,912 35.45% — No
President of Republika Srpska
Election year # Candidate Votes  % Note Elected?
1996 Steady 1st Biljana Plavšić 636.654 59.2% — Yes
1998 Steady 1st Nikola Poplašen 322,684 43.9% Support Yes
2000 Steady 1st Mirko Šarović 313,572 49.8% — Yes
2002 Steady 1st Dragan Čavić 183,121 35.9% — Yes
2006 Decrease 2nd Dragan Čavić 163,041 29.4% — No
2007 Steady 2nd Ognjen Tadić 142,898 33.8% — No
2010 Steady 2nd Ognjen Tadić 227,239 35.92% — No
2014 Steady 2nd Ognjen Tadić 296,021 44.28% — No
2018 Steady 2nd Vukota Govedarica 284,140 41.81% — No
2022 Steady 2nd Jelena Trivić 273,245 42.84% Support No

Positions held

Major positions held by Serb Democratic Party members:

Member of the Presidency of Bosnia and HerzegovinaYears
Momčilo Krajišnik 1996–1998
Mirko Šarović 2002–2003
Borislav Paravac 2003–2006
Chairman of the Council of Ministers
of Bosnia and Herzegovina		Years
Boro Bosić 1997–1999
Spasoje Tuševljak 2000
President of Republika SrpskaYears
Radovan Karadžić 1992–1996
Biljana Plavšić 1996–1998
Mirko Šarović 2000–2002
Dragan Čavić 2002–2006
Prime Minister of Republika SrpskaYears
Branko Đerić 1992–1993
Vladimir Lukić 1993–1994
Dušan Kozić 1994–1995
Rajko Kasagić 1995–1996
Gojko Kličković 1996–1998
Pero Bukejlović 2005–2006
President of Republika Srpska National AssemblyYears
Momčilo Krajišnik 1992–1996
Dragan Kalinić 1996–1998
2000–2004
Dušan Stojičić 2004–2006

References
  1. Nordsieck, Wolfram (2018). "Bosnia–Herzegovina". Parties and Elections in Europe. Retrieved 11 October 2018.
  2. "Key political parties and profiles of the main political parties running in the 2018 general elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina". balkaninsight.com. BIRN. 24 September 2018.
  3. "Bosnian Herzegovinian political outline". Santander.
  4. Nardelli, Alberto; Dzidic, Denis; Jukic, Elvira (8 October 2014). "Bosnia and Herzegovina: the world's most complicated system of government?". The Guardian. Retrieved 11 October 2018.
  5. Arnautović, Suad (2018). "The Presidentialisation of Political Parties in Bosnia and Herzegovina: A Mitigated Presidentialism". In Passarelli, Gianluca (ed.). The Presidentialisation of Political Parties in the Western Balkans. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 87. ISBN 978-3-319-97352-4.
  6. Eralp, Doğa U. (2012). Politics of the European Union in Bosnia-Herzegovina: Between Conflict and Democracy. Lexington Books. p. 21. ISBN 978-0-7391-4945-4.
  7. Archived 22 July 2012 at the Wayback Machine
  8. "US Places Sanctions on Bosnian Serb Officials". L.A. Times. Associated Press. Archived from the original on 26 October 2015. Retrieved 27 November 2015. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said that, under the sanctions, any assets the Serbian Democratic Party had in the United States would be frozen. In addition, he said, any members of that party or its partner, the Party for Democratic Progress, would be banned from entering the United States.
  9. "Office of Foreign Assets Control black list" (PDF). Office of Foreign Assets Control. Retrieved 12 February 2016.
  10. "Raškovićeva SDS obnovljena u Beogradu" (in Serbian). Vesti online. 5 March 2011. Retrieved 21 August 2018.
  11. Gow, James (2003). The Serbian Project and Its Adversaries: A Strategy of War Crimes. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press. pp. 122–123. ISBN 1850654999.
  12. "Bosnia Serbs Oust Leader From Her Party". The New York Times. 21 July 1997. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 19 June 2021.
  13. "Holbooke to seek removal of Bosnian Serb leader". The Irish Times. Retrieved 19 June 2021.
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