The Vojvodina Autonomist Movement (sr|Војвођански аутономашки покрет|Vojvođanski autonomaški pokret), or colloquially the Autonomists (sr|Аутономаши|Autonomaši) is a political movement in the Serbian province of Vojvodina that advocates more autonomy for Vojvodina within Serbia.
The idea was introduced during the 1990s and was more popular during the Yugoslav Wars when one part of the local population wasn't satisfied with the regime of Slobodan Milošević. During this time period, Milošević's regime abolished much of the aspects of Vojvodina's autonomy, which the province enjoyed during the time of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
There are several political parties or party coalitions that advocate more autonomy for Vojvodina. Most significant of them is the League of Social Democrats of Vojvodina.[1] Other autonomist party is Vojvodina's Party. Both parties are mostly led and supported by local Vojvodinian Serb population. There are also several political parties of local ethnic minorities, some of which, aside from supporting rights of ethnic minorities, are also supporting the idea of more autonomy for Vojvodina, an example of which is the Pannonian Rusyn minority party Together for Vojvodina.[2]
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There are various views among autonomist proponents about the desired level of autonomy of Vojvodina. Some advocate for returning to the level of autonomy as it was provided by the 1974 Yugoslav Constitution, while others support the idea of somewhat lesser level of autonomy than that.
One of the proposals included the one pout forward by the League of Social Democrats of Vojvodina, which advocated the transformation of Serbia into a "federal state" with federal units having varying degrees of autonomy.[7] One of the federal units, according to the proposal, would be the Republic of Vojvodina while others would be Šumadija, Southeastern Serbia, City of Belgrade, Sandžak and Kosovo.[8] [9] In recent years, the LSV mostly abandoned the idea of a Republic of Vojvodina, but is still advocating for a higher level of autonomy for the province.
In 2013 as an answer to the proposal of the Third Serbia, Novi Sad-based political organization, to abolish the province of Vojvodina, the Vojvodina's Party performed a campaign that involved the posting of "Republic of Vojvodina" posters in Novi Sad.[10] [11] [12]