| Country: | Bosnia and Herzegovina |
| Serb Democratic Party | |
| Native Name: | Српска демократска странка Srpska demokratska stranka |
| President: | Milan Miličević |
| General Secretary: | Zoran Latinović |
| Leader2 Name: | Predrag Kovač |
| Leader2 Title: | Vice-President |
| Abbreviation: | SDS |
| Founder: | Radovan Karadžić |
| Headquarters: | Ilijan Brigade Square, Pale, Istočno Sarajevo |
| International: | International Democracy Union |
| Ideology: | Formerly: |
| Youth Wing: | Youth SDS |
| Membership: | 40,000 |
| Slogan: | You will live better! |
| Seats1 Title: | HoR BiH |
| Seats2 Title: | HoP BiH |
| Seats3 Title: | NA RS |
The Serb Democratic Party (Serbian: Српска демократска странка/Srpska demokratska stranka or СДС/SDS) is a Serb political party in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Its current leader is Milan Miličević.
In the parliamentary elections of October 2006, the SDS lost its status as the leading party in Republika Srpska and the main Serb party in Bosnia and Herzegovina to the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD), led by the president of Republika Srpska Milorad Dodik.[1] Despite making minor gains in the 2010 and 2014 elections, by 2018 the party had fallen to below 20% of the parliament, the lowest seat standing in its history.
The party is under sanctions from the United States for "failing to arrest and turn over war crimes suspects to an international tribunal." The sanctions prohibit any transfer of funds and material from the United States to the SDS and vice versa.[2] [3] The party is on the list of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons by the Office of Foreign Assets Control U.S. agency.[4]
Radovan Karadžić founded the Serb Democratic Party in 1990. The party aimed at unifying the Bosnian Serb community, as Jovan Rašković's Serb Democratic Party did with the Serbs in Croatia, and staying part of Yugoslavia (as the "Third Yugoslavia" with Serbia and Montenegro) in the event of secession by those two republics from the federation.[5]
Throughout September 1991, the SDS began to establish various "Serb Autonomous Regions" throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina. After the Bosnian parliament voted on sovereignty on 15 October 1991, a separate Serb Assembly was founded on 24 October 1991 in Banja Luka, in order to exclusively represent the Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The following month, Bosnian Serbs held a referendum which resulted in an overwhelming vote in favor of staying in a federal state with Serbia and Montenegro, as part of Yugoslavia. In December 1991, a top-secret document entitled ‘For the organization and activity of organs of the Serbs people in Bosnia-Herzegovina in extraordinary circumstances’ was drawn up by the SDS leadership. This was a centralized program for the takeover of each municipality in the country, through the creation of shadow governments and para-governmental structures through various "crisis headquarters", and by preparing loyal Serbs for the takeover in co-ordination with the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA).[6]
Historically, the party had a strong ultranationalist,[7] [8] separatist and Islamophobic ideology. Recently, the party switched from far-right and adopted more moderate conservative views, with some of those views even going in favor of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a whole, and not just Republika Srpska, with perhaps one of the greatest promoters of that approach is Dragan Mektić, one of the party's high-ranking officials.
| No. | Name | Portrait | Term of office | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Radovan Karadžić | 12 July 1990 | 19 July 1996 | ||
| 2 | Aleksa Buha | 19 July 1996 | 1 July 1998 | ||
| 3 | Dragan Kalinić | 1 July 1998 | 20 July 2004 | ||
| 4 | Dragan Čavić | 20 July 2004 | 15 December 2006 | ||
| 5 | Mladen Bosić | 15 December 2006 | 8 October 2016 | ||
| 6 | Vukota Govedarica | 14 October 2016 | 30 June 2019 | ||
| 7 | Mirko Šarović | 30 June 2019 | 12 November 2022 | ||
| 8 | Milan Miličević | 12 November 2022 | Incumbent | ||
| 1990 | Radovan Karadžić | 590,431 | 26.14 |
|---|
| 1996 | Aleksa Buha | 578,723 | 24.11 | New | New | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1998 | Dragan Kalinić | 162,721 | 9.43 | 5 | 4 | ||||
| 2000 | 248,579 | 16.68 | 2 | 0 | |||||
| 2002 | 172,544 | 14.04 | 1 | 2 | |||||
| 2006 | Dragan Čavić | 108,616 | 7.69 | 2 | 2 | ||||
| 2010 | Mladen Bosić | 137,844 | 8.40 | 1 | 0 | ||||
| 2014 | 211,562 | 12.97 | 1 | 1 | |||||
| 2018 | Vukota Govedarica | 162,414 | 9.80 | 2 | 1 | ||||
| 2022 | Mirko Šarović | 112,250 | 7.07 | 1 | 0 |
DateFormat = dd/mm/yyyyPeriod = from:01/01/1996 till:01/01/2023TimeAxis = orientation:horizontalScaleMajor = unit:year increment:1 start:01/01/1996Legend = columns:3 left:40 top:75 columnwidth:90
Colors= id:Coalition value:green legend:Coalition id:Opposition value:red legend:Opposition
Define $dx = 25 # shift text to right side of barDefine $dy = -1 # adjust height
PlotData=
bar:Govern. color:blue width:25 mark:(line,black) align:center fontsize:10
from:01/01/1996 till:03/02/1999 shift:($dx,$dy) color:Coalition from:03/02/1999 till:23/12/2002 shift:($dx,$dy) color:Opposition from:23/12/2002 till:11/01/2007 shift:($dx,$dy) color:Coalition from:11/01/2007 till:12/01/2012 shift:($dx,$dy) color:Opposition from:12/01/2012 till:24/10/2013 shift:($dx,$dy) color:Coalition from:24/10/2013 till:31/03/2015 shift:($dx,$dy) color:Opposition from:31/03/2015 till:23/12/2019 shift:($dx,$dy) color:Coalition from:23/12/2019 till:end shift:($dx,$dy) color:Opposition
| 1991 | Radovan Karadžić | MPs that left the Bosnian parliament | — | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1996 | Aleksa Buha | 568,980 | 52.3% | 27 | — | |||
| 1997 | 209,767 | 28.9% | 21 | — | ||||
| 1998 | Dragan Kalinić | 160,594 | 21.7% | 5 | — | |||
| 2000 | 226,226 | 36.1% | 12 | — | ||||
| 2002 | 159,164 | 31.2% | 5 | — | ||||
| 2006 | Dragan Čavić | 103,035 | 18.27% | 9 | — | |||
| 2010 | Mladen Bosić | 120,136 | 18.97% | 1 | — | |||
| 2014 | 173,824 | 26.26% | 3 | WithSRS RS | ||||
| 2018 | Vukota Govedarica | 123,515 | 18.04% | 5 | WithSRS RS | |||
| 2022 | Mirko Šarović | 95,648 | 14.95 % | 3 | — | |||
DateFormat = dd/mm/yyyyPeriod = from:01/01/1992 till:01/01/2023TimeAxis = orientation:horizontalScaleMajor = unit:year increment:1 start:01/01/1992Legend = columns:3 left:40 top:75 columnwidth:90
Colors= id:Government value:green legend:Government id:Opposition value:red legend:Opposition
Define $dx = 25 # shift text to right side of barDefine $dy = -1 # adjust height
PlotData=
bar:Govern. color:blue width:25 mark:(line,black) align:center fontsize:10
from:22/04/1992 till:05/05/1997 shift:($dx,$dy) color:Government from:05/05/1997 till:16/01/2001 shift:($dx,$dy) color:Opposition from:16/01/2001 till:28/02/2006 shift:($dx,$dy) color:Government from:28/02/2006 till:end shift:($dx,$dy) color:Opposition
| 1996 | 1st | Momčilo Krajišnik | 690,646 | 67.3% | — | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1998 | 2nd | Momčilo Krajišnik | 314,236 | 44.7% | — | ||
| 2002 | 1st | Mirko Šarović | 180,212 | 35.5% | — | ||
| 2006 | 2nd | Mladen Bosić | 130,824 | 24.2% | — | ||
| 2010 | 2nd | Mladen Ivanić | 285,951 | 47.31% | Support | ||
| 2014 | 1st | Mladen Ivanić | 318,196 | 48.71% | Support | ||
| 2018 | 2nd | Mladen Ivanić | 292,065 | 42.74% | Support | ||
| 2022 | 2nd | Mirko Šarović | 224,912 | 35.45% | — |
| 1996 | 1st | Biljana Plavšić | 636.654 | 59.2% | — | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1998 | 1st | Nikola Poplašen | 322,684 | 43.9% | Support | ||
| 2000 | 1st | Mirko Šarović | 313,572 | 49.8% | — | ||
| 2002 | 1st | Dragan Čavić | 183,121 | 35.9% | — | ||
| 2006 | 2nd | Dragan Čavić | 163,041 | 29.4% | — | ||
| 2007 | 2nd | Ognjen Tadić | 142,898 | 33.8% | — | ||
| 2010 | 2nd | Ognjen Tadić | 227,239 | 35.92% | — | ||
| 2014 | 2nd | Ognjen Tadić | 296,021 | 44.28% | — | ||
| 2018 | 2nd | Vukota Govedarica | 284,140 | 41.81% | — | ||
| 2022 | 2nd | Jelena Trivić | 273,245 | 42.84% | Support |
Major positions held by Serb Democratic Party members:
| Years | ||
|---|---|---|
| Momčilo Krajišnik | 1996–1998 | |
| Mirko Šarović | 2002–2003 | |
| Borislav Paravac | 2003–2006 | |
| Years | ||
| Boro Bosić | 1997–1999 | |
| Spasoje Tuševljak | 2000 | |
| Years | ||
| Radovan Karadžić | 1992–1996 | |
| Biljana Plavšić | 1996–1998 | |
| Mirko Šarović | 2000–2002 | |
| Dragan Čavić | 2002–2006 | |
| Years | ||
| Branko Đerić | 1992–1993 | |
| Vladimir Lukić | 1993–1994 | |
| Dušan Kozić | 1994–1995 | |
| Rajko Kasagić | 1995–1996 | |
| Gojko Kličković | 1996–1998 | |
| Pero Bukejlović | 2005–2006 | |
| Years | ||
| Momčilo Krajišnik | 1992–1996 | |
| Dragan Kalinić | 1996–1998 2000–2004 | |
| Dušan Stojičić | 2004–2006 |