Serbian Progressive Party

The Serbian Progressive Party ( sr-cyrl, Српска напредна странка, Srpska napredna stranka, SNS) has been the ruling political party of Serbia since 2012.

Founded by Tomislav Nikolić and Aleksandar Vučić in 2008 as a split from the far-right Serbian Radical Party (SRS), the SNS served in opposition to the Democratic Party (DS) for the next several years. Running on an anti-corruption platform, it managed a strong performance in the 2009 Belgrade local elections, and in the same year, became the strongest opposition party. After signing a cooperation agreement with New Serbia (NS), the Movement of Socialists (PS), and the Strength of Serbia Movement (PSS), it organized protests in 2011, demanding early parliamentary elections. General elections were called for May 2012, in which SNS won 25% of the popular vote, while Nikolić was elected president. SNS formed a government with the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) and the United Regions of Serbia (URS), with Vučić serving as the first deputy prime minister. After accusing businessman Miroslav Mišković of corruption and arresting him, Vučić called for early parliamentary elections to be held in March 2014. SNS campaigned on an anti-corruption platform while criticizing its opponents, which led to SNS winning 158 out of 250 seats in the National Assembly. Vučić was elected prime minister after the election, while Siniša Mali was elected mayor of Belgrade after the 2014 City Assembly election. The first major anti-government protests under the SNS took place in 2015, in which demonstrators called for the termination of the Belgrade Waterfront, an urban development project headed by the Government.

Another early parliamentary election was called for April 2016; the SNS campaigned on ensuring economic reforms and supporting the European Union. It won 131 seats in the National Assembly, and 63 out of 120 seats in the provincial election in Vojvodina; Vučić was re-elected prime minister, while Igor Mirović was elected president of the Government of Vojvodina. Vučić was chosen by SNS as its presidential candidate for the 2017 presidential election, in which he won 55% of the popular vote in the first run-off; mass protests were held until his inauguration on 31 May 2017. Ana Brnabić succeeded Vučić as prime minister. Zoran Radojičić replaced Mali as mayor after the March 2018 City Assembly election, while later that year, a series of anti-government protests began; demonstrators demanded more media freedom and an end to political violence. SNS launched a campaign in February 2019 which effectively silenced the protests. The major opposition Alliance for Serbia (SzS) boycotted the 2020 parliamentary election, which led SNS to win a supermajority of 188 seats; CeSID stated that the election was met with "minimum democratic standards", while OSCE noted the presence of political polarization. Brnabić formed a government with SPS and the Serbian Patriotic Alliance (SPAS); the latter merged into SNS in May 2021. The SNS-led government was faced with environmental protests in 2021 and early 2022, while the constitutional changes that it proposed were voted in favor by a majority of voters in the January 2022 constitutional referendum. In the 2022 Serbian general election, Vučić was re-elected with 60% of the popular vote, while the SNS won 120 seats in the National Assembly; Aleksandar Šapić was elected mayor of Belgrade after the City Assembly election.

Scholars and political scientists consider the SNS a populist party, with some stating that it does not have a coherent ideology or that populist ideas are integral to its ideological profile. The party is supportive of Serbia's accession to the European Union, although political scientists have noted that its support is rather pragmatic. Scholars and authors have also described the SNS as a catch-all party; some have also positioned it as either a centrist, centre-right, or a right-wing party. SNS is economically neoliberal; it advocates for austerity, privatization, and liberalization of labour laws. Critics have assessed that after it came to power, Serbia has suffered from democratic backsliding into authoritarianism, as well as a decline in media freedom and civil liberties, with the V-Dem Institute categorizing Serbia as an electoral autocracy and Freedom House categorizing it as a hybrid regime. As of 2021, the SNS has at least 800,000 members, and is the largest political party in Europe by membership.

History

Formation

The conflict between Tomislav Nikolić and Vojislav Šešelj came to light after Nikolić's statement that the Serbian Radical Party (SRS) in the National Assembly would support the Stabilisation and Association Process agreement for the accession of Serbia to the European Union; Nikolić's statement was met with the resistance from Šešelj and his supporters. Nikolić, who was the head of the SRS parliamentary group and a deputy president of the party since 1992, resigned from these posts on 7 September 2008. A day later, Nikolić formed the "Forward, Serbia" parliamentary group with 10 other MPs; five more MPs joined the parliamentary group in the following days. Božidar Delić and Jorgovanka Tabaković, high-ranking members of SRS, were one of the founding members of the parliamentary group.

On 11 September, Nikolić announced that the "Forward, Serbia" parliamentary group would transform itself into a political party. It was speculated that Aleksandar Vučić, the general-secretary of SRS, would join the newly-formed party; Nikolić later that day confirmed that he would join the party. A day later, SRS dismissed Nikolić and 17 other MPs from the party due to their opposition to Šešelj, while Vučić left SRS on 13 September. Nikolić stated that the newly-formed party would be the party of the "modern right", whilst supporting strengthening relations with the European Union and Russia. On 24 September, Nikolić announced that the party would be called the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS). SNS was registered as a political party on 10 October, while the founding convention was held on 21 October, in which a 20-man presidency was presented with Nikolić as the president and Vučić as deputy president. By that period, SNS received support from SRS members, while the SNS parliamentary group sat at 21 MPs.

2008–2011

In November 2008, SNS called for snap parliamentary elections to be held by October 2009; this proposal was also later supported by Čedomir Jovanović, leader of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Later that month, Vučić stated that SNS would act in opposition to the Democratic Party (DS). SNS opposed the initiative regarding constitutional changes in May 2009, which it described as "frivolous". A month later, SNS took part in local elections in Zemun, a Belgrade municipality known for being the stronghold of SRS; SNS won 34% of the popular vote, while SRS only won 10%. By July 2009, SNS established itself as the strongest opposition party in Serbia. SNS later campaigned and voted against the proposed Media Law, which they described as " anti-democratic". SNS also called for resignation of prime minister Mirko Cvetković in October 2009. It took part in local elections in Voždovac and Kostolac in December 2009; in Voždovac, it won 37% of the popular vote and 26 seats in the Local Assembly, while in Kostolac it won 12% of the popular vote. Following the elections, SNS formed a local government with the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) and New Serbia (NS) in Voždovac. CeSID, a non-governmental and electoral monitoring organization, argued that the reason behind their electoral success was due to their anti-corruption promises.

SNS announced in February 2010 that it collected over 500,000 signatures in favor of snap parliamentary elections; a month later, it claimed that the number grew to over a million signatures. After March 2010, SNS claimed that DS "was pulling the country into a deep crisis", and that in response it would hold anti-government protests in Belgrade. SNS declaratively supported the , which condemned the 1995 massacre in Srebrenica, although it abstained the vote in the National Assembly. It announced in December 2010, that it would organize protests in February 2011; NS also stated that it would join the protests. The Government of Serbia stated that it would want to discuss with SNS, although SNS declined the offer. SNS handed over 304,580 signatures in favor of changing the constitution in January 2011. A series of anti-government protests that were organized by SNS began in February 2011. SNS demanded the government to call snap elections by December 2011. Initially it was held in Belgrade, although the protests spread through out other cities in Serbia in March and April 2011. Nikolić went on a hunger strike in mid-April, after demanding president Boris Tadić to call snap parliamentary elections. During a protest in October 2011, its high-party officials occupied the building of . In the National Assembly, SNS sent an initiative to lower the amount of MPs from 250 to 125 after collecting 280,000 signatures in support of the change.

2012–2013

Back in November 2010, SNS signed a cooperation agreement with NS and two other parties, the Movement of Socialists (PS) and Strength of Serbia Movement (PSS). The parties later held a meeting in February 2011 and took part together in protests that were organized by SNS. The protests played a role in boosting the popularity of SNS, while opinion polls showed that SNS received had support from voters than then-ruling DS. Due to the anti-government protests, President Tadić called for general elections to be held in spring of 2012. In January 2012, it was confirmed that SNS would take part in a joint parliamentary list together with NS, PS, PSS, and eight minor parties and associations. The coalition was later dubbed "Let's Get Serbia Moving". Nikolić was chosen as the presidential candidate of SNS, while Tabaković was chosen as the candidate for prime minister. During the campaign period, SNS criticized DS whilst campaigning on a pro-European platform, as well as promising to "correct the mistakes of DS". Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City, met with Nikolić and Vučić during the campaign period in Belgrade in order to consult with them. In the parliamentary election, the SNS-led coalition topped at the first place with 25% of the popular vote and won 73 seats in the National Assembly; SNS itself won 55 seats. Nikolić accused DS of vote fraud; during a press conference he showed a bag with about three thousand ballots that were allegedly thrown into a trash can. In the presidential election, Nikolić ended up in a run-off against President Tadić; Nikolić ended up winning the second run-off. SNS did not receive the highest amount of votes in the provincial and Belgrade City Assembly elections, and was unable to form governments in Vojvodina and Belgrade. Shortly after the presidential election, Nikolić resigned as the president of SNS and was succeeded by Vučić in September 2012; Tabaković was also elected deputy president.

Nikolić held consultations with parliamentary parties after the election. After the consultations, Ivica Dačić, the leader of the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS), was given the mandate to form a government. Dačić reached a deal with SNS and the United Regions of Serbia (URS), and on 27 July the new government was sworn in. Vučić became the first deputy prime minister. After becoming the first deputy prime minister, Vučić entered into a conflict with oligarch businessman Miroslav Mišković; he claimed that Mišković allegedly "gained illegal profit" in the 2000s. Mišković was arrested in December 2012 on suspicion of corruption, although in July 2013 he was released from custody. In October 2012, it was reported that SNS had over 330,000 members. The People's Party (NP), led by former mayor of Novi Sad Maja Gojković, merged into SNS in December 2012. By February 2013, SNS received over 40% of support in opinion polls, while DS, now in opposition, had 13% of support. Euractiv reported that SNS was accused of eyeing a snap parliamentary election, although it declined that it was conducting a smear campaign. In April 2013, a majority of Main Board members voted in favor of the Brussels Agreement, a normalization agreement between Serbia and Kosovo. In July 2013, SNS and SPS concluded that they continue leading the government without URS; the SNS–SPS government was reshuffled in early September 2013. Veroljub Arsić, who served as the head of the SNS parliamentary group, was replaced by Zoran Babić in August 2013. A month later, Dragan Đilas, the mayor of Belgrade, was dismissed after a vote of no confidence that was called by SNS and DSS; SPS and the Party of United Pensioners of Serbia (PUPS) also voted in support of the vote. Guy de Launey, a BBC
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