Serbian Progressive Party
The Serbian Progressive Party is a major populist and catch-all political party in Serbia. It has been the ruling party since 2012. Miloš Vučević, the former prime minister of Serbia, has served as its president since 2023.
Founded by Tomislav Nikolić and Aleksandar Vučić in 2008 as a split from the Serbian Radical Party, SNS served in opposition to the Democratic Party until 2012. SNS gained prominence and became the largest opposition party due to their anti-corruption platform and the protests in 2011 at which they demanded early elections. In 2012, Nikolić was elected president of Serbia and succeeded by Vučić as president of SNS. A coalition government led by SNS and Socialist Party of Serbia was also formed. Vučić became prime minister in 2014 while SNS became the largest party in Belgrade and Vojvodina in 2014 and 2016 respectively.
SNS chose Vučić as their presidential candidate for the 2017 election, which he ultimately won. Mass protests were organised following his election, while Ana Brnabić, an independent who later joined SNS, succeeded him as prime minister. SNS was later faced with protests from 2018 to 2020 and gained a supermajority of seats in the National Assembly of Serbia after the 2020 election which was boycotted by most opposition parties. The Serbian Patriotic Alliance merged into SNS in 2021 while environmental protests were also organised in 2021 and 2022. Vučić was re-elected as president in 2022, while SNS has continued to lead the government with SPS. A year later, Vučić was succeeded by Vučević as president of SNS, who led the party in the 2023 election. Since 2024, SNS has faced student-led anti-corruption protests.
Political scientists have described SNS as a populist and catch-all party that either has a weak ideological profile or that is non-ideological. SNS supports Serbia's accession to the European Union but its support is rather pragmatic than ideological. An economically neoliberal party, SNS has pushed for austerity, market economy reforms, privatisation, economic liberalisation, and has reformed wages, pensions, the labour law, introduced a lex specialis for Belgrade Waterfront, and reformed the Constitution in the part related to judiciary. SNS is an associated member of the European People's Party and a member of the International Democracy Union. 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. As of 2024, SNS has at least 700,000 members, making it one of the largest political parties by membership in Europe.
History
Formation
The conflict between Tomislav Nikolić and Vojislav Šešelj came to light after Nikolić's statement that the Serbian Radical Party, a far-right political party, 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 was registered as a political party on 10 October, while the founding convention was held on 21 October, at which a 20-man presidency was presented with Nikolić as the president and Vučić as deputy president. During the period of its formation, SNS gained 21 members in the National Assembly in total and members of local chapters of SRS switched their affiliation to SNS.
2008–2011: Opposition
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. Later that month, Vučić stated that SNS would act in opposition to the Democratic Party. SNS opposed the DS 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 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 and New Serbia in Voždovac. CeSID, a non-governmental and electoral monitoring organisation, 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 favour 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 organise anti-government protests in Belgrade. SNS declaratively supported the and condemned the victims of the 1995 massacre in Srebrenica, although it abstained from voting in the National Assembly in March 2010. SNS announced in December 2010, that it would organise protests in February 2011; New Serbia also said that it would join the protests. SNS handed over 304,580 signatures in favour of changing the constitution in January 2011. A series of anti-government protests that were organised by SNS began in February 2011. SNS demanded the government to call snap elections by December 2011. Initially the protests were held in Belgrade, although they spread throughout other locations 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.
2012–2013: Early years in government
Back in November 2010, SNS signed a cooperation agreement with New Serbia and two other parties, the Movement of Socialists and Strength of Serbia Movement. The parties later held a meeting in February 2011 and took part together in protests that were organised by SNS. The protests played a role in boosting the popularity of SNS, while opinion polls had shown that SNS received more support from voters than 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 named "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 criticised 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 to consult for 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 received enough support to enter the second run-off against President Tadić; Nikolić won. SNS did not receive the highest number of votes in the provincial and Belgrade City Assembly elections, and was unable to form governments in Vojvodina and Belgrade. On 24 May 2012, Nikolić resigned as the president of SNS and was succeeded by Vučić, who was then later elected 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, was given the mandate to form a government. Dačić reached a deal with SNS and the United Regions of Serbia 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, 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.
In July 2013, SNS and SPS concluded that they would continue leading the government without URS; the SNS–SPS government was then 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 also voted in support of the vote. Guy de Launey, a BBC News correspondent, Dragoljub Žarković, the co-founder of the Vreme newspaper, and journalist Koča Pavlović, stated that Vučić held the most influence and power in the government due to his status as the president of the largest party in the coalition government. Freedom House, a non-profit research organisation, noted that the efforts to curb corruption during 2013 received mixed results.