Democratic Party

The Democratic Party (; , abbr. DS) is a social democratic political party in Serbia. Zoran Lutovac has led the party as its president since 2018. DS was founded in 1990 by a group of intellectuals who sought to revive the Democratic Party, which was active in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Dragoljub Mićunović was the first president of DS until 1994 and under his leadership DS gained representation in the National Assembly of Serbia and took part in anti-government protests. After Zoran Đinđić's election as president of DS in 1994, DS was reorganised and he led the party into the Together coalition, and took part in the 1996–1997 protests, which occurred after the Electoral Commission invalidated local election results in cities in which the Together coalition had won. DS later led the , which became part of the Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS) in January 2000. DOS won the 2000 Yugoslav general election, but Slobodan Milošević, the president of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and president of the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS), declined to accept the results, culminating in his overthrow. DS assumed power in Serbia after winning parliamentary elections in December 2000 and Đinđić became prime minister. Đinđić was assassinated in March 2003 and succeeded by Boris Tadić as president of DS. Tadić would become president of Serbia while DS would be in opposition from 2004 to 2007, when it became part of a coalition government led by DSS. Tadić led DS to victory in 2008 when a coalition government with SPS was formalised. DS was defeated by the Serbian Progressive Party in 2012 and went into opposition. Dragan Đilas became the president of DS in December 2012; he was ousted as mayor of Belgrade in 2013 but survived an internal motion of no confidence in January 2014. He was, however, succeeded by Bojan Pajtić in May 2014. Dragan Šutanovac became the president of DS after Pajtić's resignation in 2016. Šutanovac was then succeeded by Lutovac in 2018. Lutovac led DS into several opposition coalitions and boycotted the 2020 parliamentary election, causing a schism in the party. He successfully led DS back into the National Assembly in the 2022 election. DS was a catch-all party in its early years, occupying the centrist and centre-right position. It supported the establishment of a market economy, denationalisation, and union rights.