Parliamentary elections were held in
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...
on 11 December 1938. The result was a victory for the governing
Yugoslav Radical Union, which won 306 of the 373 seats in
National Assembly
In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the rep ...
.
These would be the last elections held in Yugoslavia before
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
. By the time of the first postwar elections, in
1945
1945 marked the end of World War II and the fall of Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan. It is also the only year in which Nuclear weapon, nuclear weapons Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, have been used in combat.
Events
Below, ...
, the
Communist Party of Yugoslavia was rapidly consolidating power, and the non-Communist opposition boycotted the vote after claiming to have been targeted with severe intimidation.
["Elections In Yugoslavia", ''The Times'', 9 November 1945] As a result, the 1938 elections would be the last
multi-party
In political science, a multi-party system is a political system in which multiple political parties across the political spectrum run for national elections, and all have the capacity to gain control of government offices, separately or in coa ...
elections held in Yugoslavia until the
Communists
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
gave up their monopoly of power in 1990.
Coalitions
The
Yugoslav Radical Union (JRZ, Jereza) led by PM
Milan Stojadinović
Milan Stojadinović ( sr-Cyrl, Милан Стојадиновић; 4 August 1888 – 26 October 1961) was a Serbian and Yugoslav politician and economist who served as the Prime Minister of Yugoslavia from 1935 to 1939. He also served as Fore ...
, form an
right-wing to
far-right alliance with:
*
Yugoslav National Party
The Yugoslav National Party ( sh, Jugoslavenska nacionalna stranka, Југославенска национална странка, JNS; sl, Jugoslovanska nacionalna stranka), established as Yugoslav Radical Peasants' Democracy ( sh, Jugoslavensk ...
led by
Bogoljub Jevtić
Bogoljub Jevtić (Serbian Cyrillic: Богољуб Јевтић; 24 December 1886 – 7 June 1960) was a Serbian diplomat and politician in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.
He was plenipotentiary minister of Yugoslavia in Albania, Austria and Hungary. ...
,
*
Yugoslav Muslim Organization
The Yugoslav Muslim Organization (, ''JMO'') was an Ethnic Muslim (today Bosniak) political party in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, later in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. It was founded in Sarajevo on the 16 February 1919 and was led by ...
led by
Mehmed Spaho
Mehmed Spaho (13 March 1883 – 29 June 1939) was a Bosnian politician and leader of the Yugoslav Muslim Organization. He was the first Bosnian Muslim politician in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Spaho was described as the "undispu ...
,
*
Slovene People's Party led by
Anton Korošec
Anton Korošec (, ; 12 May 1872 – 14 December 1940) was a Yugoslav politician, a prominent member of the conservative People's Party, a Roman Catholic priest and a noted orator.
Early life
Korošec was born in Biserjane (then Duchy of Styr ...
and
*
People's Radical Party
The People's Radical Party ( sr, Народна радикална странка, Narodna radikalna stranka, abbr. НРС or NRS) was the dominant ruling party of Kingdom of Serbia and later Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes from the l ...
led by
Aca Stanojević
Aleksa "Aca" Stanojević (Knjaževac, Principality of Serbia, 1852 - SFR Yugoslavia, 1947) was a Serbian and Yugoslav politician, one of the founders and leaders of the People's Radical Party.
Stanojević was a member of the People's Radical Part ...
, which later leaves the alliance in favor of the United Opposition.
The
United Opposition alliance was consisted of:
*
Croatian Peasant Party
The Croatian Peasant Party ( hr, Hrvatska seljačka stranka, HSS) is an agrarian political party in Croatia founded on 22 December 1904 by Antun and Stjepan Radić as Croatian Peoples' Peasant Party (HPSS). The Brothers Radić believed that t ...
led by
Vladko Maček
*
Independent Democratic Party led by
Srđan Budisavljević
Srđan Budisavljević (8 December 1883 – 20 February 1968) was a politician and lawyer born in Požega. Budisavljević stuied law in Zagreb and Berlin before being elected to the Sabor of the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia in 1908 as a represent ...
*
Democratic Party Democratic Party most often refers to:
*Democratic Party (United States)
Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to:
Active parties Africa
*Botswana Democratic Party
*Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea
*Gabonese Democratic Party
*Demo ...
led by
Ljubomir Davidović
Ljubomir Davidović (24 December 1863 – 19 February 1940) was a Yugoslav and Serbian politician who served as prime minister (1919–1920 and 1924) of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (later called Yugoslavia).
Biography
Davidovi ...
*
Agrarian Party led by
Jovan Jovanović Pižon
Jovan Jovanović Pižon (; 3 September 1869 — 20 June 1939) was a Serbian diplomat, politician and writer who served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Serbia from 18 June 1912 to 27 August 1912.
Biography
He was born in B ...
*
Montenegrin Federalist Party
The Montenegrin Federalist Party (, , CFS), sometimes known simply as the Montenegrin Party, was a Montenegrin political party in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia which stood for preservation of Montenegrin autonomy and a decentralized federalised Yug ...
led by
Sekula Drljević
Sekula Drljević (; 7 September 1884 – 10 November 1945) was a Montenegrin nationalist, Yugoslav jurist, politician, orator, and theoretician. During World War II, he was a collaborator with the Ustaše in the German puppet state of t ...
Results
Aftermath
Although the
United Opposition, ''de facto'' led by the
Croatian Peasant Party
The Croatian Peasant Party ( hr, Hrvatska seljačka stranka, HSS) is an agrarian political party in Croatia founded on 22 December 1904 by Antun and Stjepan Radić as Croatian Peoples' Peasant Party (HPSS). The Brothers Radić believed that t ...
leader Maček, had attracted 44.9% of the vote, due to the electoral rules by which the government parties received 40% of the seats in the National Assembly before votes were counted, the opposition vote only translated into 67 seats out of a total of 373.
Milan Stojadinović
Milan Stojadinović ( sr-Cyrl, Милан Стојадиновић; 4 August 1888 – 26 October 1961) was a Serbian and Yugoslav politician and economist who served as the Prime Minister of Yugoslavia from 1935 to 1939. He also served as Fore ...
second cabinet collapsed in February 1939, due to his pro-
Axis
An axis (plural ''axes'') is an imaginary line around which an object rotates or is symmetrical. Axis may also refer to:
Mathematics
* Axis of rotation: see rotation around a fixed axis
* Axis (mathematics), a designator for a Cartesian-coordinat ...
policy. He was replaced by
Dragiša Cvetković
Dragiša Cvetković ( sr-cyr, Драгиша Цветковић; 15 January 1893 – 18 February 1969) was a Yugoslav politician active in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. He served as the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia from 1939 to 1941. ...
as Prime Minister and de jure JRZ leader. The
Cvetković–Maček Cabinet was concluded in August 1939 establishing autonomous
Banovina of Croatia. Maček became the
Deputy Prime Minister of Yugoslavia
The Deputy Prime Minister of Yugoslavia was the official Deputy of the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, SFR Yugoslavia and later Prime Minister of FR Yugoslavia, from 1939 until 2003.
History of the office
The office of the Deputy Prim ...
and several members of the United Opposition were added to the new cabinet.
Following the Cvetković government sign
Yugoslav accession to the Tripartite Pact
On 25 March 1941, Yugoslavia signed the Tripartite Pact with the Axis powers. The agreement was reached after months of negotiations between Germany and Yugoslavia and was signed at the Belvedere in Vienna by Joachim von Ribbentrop, German forei ...
in March 1941, there was a faction led by the commander of the
Royal Yugoslav Air Force (VVKJ), General
Dušan Simović
Dušan Simović (; 28 October 1882 – 26 August 1962) was a Yugoslav Serb army general who served as Chief of the General Staff of the Royal Yugoslav Army and as the Prime Minister of Yugoslavia in 1940–1941.
Biography
Simović, born o ...
, that successfully realized a
pro-Allied coup.
Sources
*
*
References
External links
The Elections to the Parliament of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats & Slovenes 1920 - 1938
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...
Parliamentary election
A general election is a political voting election where generally all or most members of a given political body are chosen. These are usually held for a nation, state, or territory's primary legislative body, and are different from by-elections ( ...
Elections in Yugoslavia
December 1938 events
Election and referendum articles with incomplete results
{{Yugoslavia-stub