The Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) may be heading into the October elections amid serious upheaval at the local level, declining support and fears of failing to cross the electoral threshold, while resignations by party officials are coming in from boards across Serbia following the expulsion of Branko Ružić from the party. According to Nova.rs, SPS members fear that they will be unable to cross the threshold if they run independently in the elections, which is why some of them have joined the Serbian Progressive Party in recent weeks. All of this coincides with the sudden revival of Bogoljub Karić’s movement, which has been touring cities across the country as part of its pre-election campaign, leading to speculation that he has specifically targeted the Socialist electorate. So what can the Socialists hope for in October?
The Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) may be heading into the October elections amid what is probably the biggest crisis since its founding, with the situation particularly evident at the local level.
According to Nova.rs, Socialists, especially in southern Serbia, fear that they will not be able to cross the electoral threshold in the upcoming elections, while the situation is no better in neighboring districts.
That fear is not unfounded, given that in the local elections in Zaječar last June, SPS failed to cross the threshold, while this year in Sečanj it won just one council seat.
In addition, according to Nova.rs, a large number of SPS members fear running independently in the elections, which is why some of them have joined the ranks of the Serbian Progressive Party in recent weeks.
The uncertainty over crossing the threshold is accompanied by a major SPS crisis in Niš, where the former president of the Niš City Assembly, Igor Novaković, was finally found guilty in March this year, after more than a decade of court proceedings, of abuse of office while serving as director of Jugoistok.
After several months of postponements, Novaković was due to report to prison on August 10 to begin serving his sentence. He confirmed this himself on social media, where he called on Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić and the president of the Supreme Court to “urge that the proceedings finally reach a conclusion through an extraordinary legal remedy.”
Meanwhile, the Niš Progressives distanced themselves from Novaković following the conviction. He had been second on the “Aleksandar Vučić – Niša sutra” electoral list.
As is often the case, troubles do not come alone, and the expulsion of Branko Ružić from SPS has caused upheaval in Socialist Party boards across Serbia.
In just the past few days, several Socialists have resigned from positions in Belgrade as well as in other party boards.
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Members of the Main Board of the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS), Milutin Ružić and Mateja Ranković, submitted irrevocable resignations from all positions and membership in the party over Branko Ružić’s expulsion from SPS.
On September 2, former vice president of the Government of Vojvodina and provincial secretary for the economy and tourism, Ivan Đoković, also resigned from all positions in SPS.
Senior Socialist Party of Serbia official Andrija Radivojević from Paraćin also announced that he had resigned from all positions in the party. The same was done by SPS Main Board member Dejan Ćurčić and president of the SPS Municipal Board in Kuršumlija, Milan Stepanović.
Marko Simić also resigned on September 5. He was the commissioner of the Socialist Party of Serbia Municipal Board in Ćuprija. In an open letter to the public, he described his decision as “well-considered” and criticized the fact that SPS policy has been reduced to cooperation with the Serbian Progressive Party.
The resignations of SPS members have not spared Kosovo either, as the president of the party’s municipal board in Zubin Potok, Branko Prodanović, left the party and resigned from all positions.
While SPS is visibly weakening at the local level, the leader of the Strength of Serbia Movement, Bogoljub Karić, has simultaneously been occupying the public space, touring cities across Serbia for months, handing out money in the streets and publicly promising jobs to citizens.
His resurgence after years of silence certainly raises suspicions that Karić is not doing all of this alone, but with the help of the authorities. During his pre-election visits across Serbia, local television stations have opened their doors wide to him, he is sometimes welcomed by SNS officials, and, as he himself stated, the Strength of Serbia Movement has once again activated its offices and boards across the country after a long period. The movement says that 102 boards in Serbia, including Vojvodina, were restored in around 40 days.
This has created the impression that Karić has actually targeted the SPS electorate, because the authorities, or Aleksandar Vučić, do not want to give up even a single percentage point of votes.
Given all these upheavals in such a short period, as well as several polls showing a dramatic decline in SPS support, the question arises as to what position this party, which has remained in power for decades, will be in when it faces possible October elections.
Professor at the Faculty of Political Sciences Zoran Stojiljković told Nova.rs that, regardless of everything, there are probably calculations that SPS could cross the threshold through certain coalition arrangements, for example with the SDP or Rasim Ljajić.
“There has been a dispute with Ružić within SPS for a long time, and it is obvious that there is some kind of ‘pressure from outside the house,’ namely from SNS and Vučić, to resolve this issue before an electoral arrangement, fearing that a result leading to a post-election coalition could give SPS and some others a chance to be ready to switch sides, either immediately or after some time,” Stojiljković said.
The Nova.rs interlocutor also believes that Ružić did not go far enough to become a strong internal party player and form his own faction or clearly defined group.
“He mainly stuck to statements, so it was assessed that the loss for the party would be below the risk of failing to cross the threshold. Those were probably some of the decisive factors. The loss was marginalized by the party declaring its own electoral campaign and candidate, which reduced the damage. We will see what happens,” Stojiljković said.
The FPN professor says that Branko Ružić’s future now lies outside the Socialist Party of Serbia, but that it probably does not amount to a “marketable position” before the elections.
Let us recall that a CRTA poll conducted this summer that attracted considerable public attention showed, among other things, that only the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS), alongside the students and SNS, would cross the threshold – and only barely, with 3.8 percent of the vote.
Rumors about SPS’s declining ratings have been circulating for quite some time. The key evidence is the result of the 2023 parliamentary elections, when the party won around 6.55 percent of the vote, nine percentage points less than in 2012, when SPS, with 15.18 percent, was crucial to forming the coalition that would bring the Progressives to power.
Public opinion polls this year have given the party varying chances in possible parliamentary elections, but all of them are far below the double-digit figures that the Socialists once boasted.
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Source: Nova ; Foto: ATA Images
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