Socialist Party of Serbia in the context of "1990 Serbian general election"

The Republic of Serbia (Serbo-Croatian: Република Србија / Republika Srbija) was a constituent state of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia between 1992 and 2003 and the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro from 2003 to 2006. With Montenegro's secession from the union with Serbia in June 2006, both became sovereign states in their own right for the first time in nearly 88 years.

After the League of Communists of Yugoslavia collapsed in 1990, the Socialist Republic of Serbia led by Slobodan Milošević's Socialist Party (formerly the Communists) adopted a new constitution, declaring itself a constituent republic with democratic institutions within Yugoslavia, and the "Socialist" adjective was dropped from the official title. As Yugoslavia broke up, in 1992 Serbia and Montenegro formed a new federative state called the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, known after 2003 as simply Serbia and Montenegro.

Slobodan Milošević (Serbian Cyrillic: Слободан Милошевић, pronounced [slobǒdan milǒːʃevitɕ] , 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 Yugoslavia from 1997 until his overthrow in 2000. Milošević played a major role in the Yugoslav Wars and became the first sitting head of state charged with war crimes.

Born in Požarevac, he studied law at the University of Belgrade Faculty of Law during which he joined the League of Socialist Youth of Yugoslavia. From the 1960s, he was advisor to the mayor of Belgrade, and in the 1970s he was a chairman of large companies as the protégé of Serbian leader Ivan Stambolić. Milošević was a high-ranking member of the League of Communists of Serbia (SKS) during the 1980s; he came to power in 1987 after he ousted opponents, including Stambolić. He was elected president of the Socialist Republic of Serbia in 1989 and led the anti-bureaucratic revolution, reforming Serbia's constitution and transitioning the state into a multi-party system, reducing the power of autonomous provinces. He led the Socialist Party of Serbia from its foundation in 1990 until his death. Following the 1990 general elections, Milošević enacted dominant-party rule while his party retained control over economic resources of the state. During his presidency, anti-government and anti-war protests took place, and hundreds of thousands deserted the Milošević-controlled Yugoslav People's Army, leading to mass emigration from Serbia.

The president was the leader of the League of Communists of Serbia (LCS), the ruling party of the Socialist Republic of Serbia (SRS) in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Party rules stipulated that the LCS Central Committee elected the president. Moreover, the Central Committee was empowered to remove the president. The president served ex officio as a member of the Presidency of the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (LCY) and of the SRS Presidency. To be eligible to serve, the president had to be a member of the Presidency of the LCS Central Committee. The 8th LCS Congress instituted a two-year term limits for officeholders.

The office traces its lineage back to the office of "Secretary of the Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia in Serbia", established after the founding of the LCY in 1919. This body had no distinct rights and was under the jurisdiction of the Yugoslav Central Committee. On 8 May 1945, the LCY convened the founding congress of the Communist Party of Serbia. On 12 May, the Central Committee of the 1st Congress elected Blagoje Nešković as "Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Serbia". The LCY 6th Congress on 2–7 November 1952, renamed the party League of Communists, and the Serbian republican branch followed suit and changed its name to League of Communists of Serbia. On 4 October 1966, the 5th Plenary Session of the Central Committee of the LCY 8th Congress abolished the office of General Secretary at the national level and replaced with the office of President. The LCS Central Committee convened a meeting on 4 November 1966 that abolished the office of secretary and established the "President of the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Serbia". The reforms passed by the LCY Central Committee plenum strengthened the powers of the republican branches and gave more powers to the Serbian party leader. The 9th LCS Congress introduced another set of reforms on 29 May 1982, which abolished the existing office and replaced it with the "President of the Presidency of the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Serbia". This office was retained until 30 June 1990, when the party changed its name to the Socialist Party of Serbia on 17 July 1990.

Ivica Dačić (Serbian Cyrillic: Ивица Дачић, pronounced [îʋitsa dâtʃitɕ]; born 1 January 1966) is a Serbian politician serving as deputy prime minister of Serbia since 2022 and minister of internal affairs since 2024. He has been the leader of the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) since 2006.

Dačić graduated from the University of Belgrade in 1989 and joined SPS in 1991. He quickly rose up the ranks of the party, becoming its spokesman in 1992, under his mentor, Slobodan Milosević, President of Serbia and FR Yugoslavia. After the fall of Milošević, he served as the minister of information in a transitional government from 2000 to 2001. Dačić became SPS party leader in 2006. Like his predecessor Milošević, he is regarded as a pragmatic leader willing to change views based on circumstance and has worked to reform the party. Dačić led SPS into a government with the Democratic Party (DS) in 2008, after which he became the first deputy prime minister and minister of internal affairs, roles which he served until 2012. The DS–SPS government reached an EU candidate status. After the 2012 parliamentary election, SPS formed a coalition government with the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS); Dačić was elected prime minister. The SNS–SPS government pursued the European Union to start formal negotiations for the accession of Serbia and he signed the Brussels Agreement on the normalisation of relations of governments of Serbia and Kosovo.

The Socialist Alliance of Working People of Yugoslavia (SSRNJ), known before 1953 as the People's Front of Yugoslavia (NFJ), was the largest and most influential mass organization in SFR Yugoslavia from August 1945 through 1990. It succeeded the Unitary National Liberation Front, which gathered and politically backed anti-fascist layers of society throughout Yugoslavia since 1934. By 1990, SSRNJ's membership was thirteen million individuals, including most of the adult population of the country. The Serbian Socialist Alliance of Working People merged with the League of Communists of Serbia in July 1990 to form the Socialist Party of Serbia.

The Serbian Radical Party (Serbian: Српска радикална странка, romanized: Srpska radikalna stranka, abbr. SRS) is a far-right, ultranationalist political party in Serbia. Founded in 1991, its co-founder, first and only leader is Vojislav Šešelj.

The SRS was founded in 1991 as a merger of the Serbian Chetnik Movement, led by Šešelj, and the People's Radical Party, led by Tomislav Nikolić. Upon formation, they became the president and deputy president of SRS respectively. During the first half of the 1990s the SRS supported the ruling Socialist Party of Serbia regime, which had contributed greatly to the rise of SRS through the use of media. The party had strong support until the 2000 election, when SRS suffered a major defeat, but through populist rhetoric it became the most voted party in the early-to-mid 2000s. Šešelj voluntarily surrendered to the ICTY to defend himself against charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity that he was alleged to have committed during the Croatian War of Independence and the Bosnian War. Nikolić assumed de facto party leadership until he left the party in 2008.

The 1991 protests in Belgrade happened on the streets of Belgrade, the capital of Serbia and Yugoslavia when a protest rally turned into a riot featuring vicious clashes between the protesters and police.

The initial mass rally that took place on 9 March 1991 was organized by Vuk Drašković's Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO), an opposition political party in Serbia, protesting the rule of Slobodan Milošević and his Socialist Party of Serbia, particularly their misuse of Radio Television Belgrade. Two people died in the ensuing violence, and the government then ordered the Yugoslav People's Army onto the city streets. The police detained several prominent SPO officials and banned two media outlets considered unfriendly to the government. The protests are referred to in Serbian as Devetomartovski protest, i.e. the March 9 protest, after this initial event.

In the winter of 1996–1997, university students and Serbian opposition parties organized a series of peaceful protests in the Republic of Serbia (then part of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia) in response to electoral fraud attempted by the Socialist Party of Serbia of President Slobodan Milošević after the 1996 local elections.

During the course of the rallies, students held their protests separately from the citizens' ones, led by opposition then gathered in coalition Zajedno (Together). The students' protest lasted until 22 March 1997, with additional requests of replacing the management of University of Belgrade and return of the university autonomy.