Serbian Socialists Turn 36 as Dacic Invokes Milosevic

The Socialist Party of Serbia marked three decades and six years of existence on Friday, July 17. The party was founded on that date in 1990 by Slobodan Milosevic and is led today by Ivica Dacic, first deputy prime minister and minister of the interior. Marking the anniversary, the party leadership said the SPS remains anchored to the same ideological foundations on which it was created.

Addressing the party on its birthday, Dacic described the SPS as “a party of continuity, stability and responsibility” and said the socialists will keep fighting for Serbia “even harder and more boldly”. The message came as the party prepares for a new electoral cycle, with its place in the ruling coalition remaining one of the open questions of domestic politics.

What is the Main Board saying?

The party’s Main Board marked SPS Day by declaring that it rests on two foundations: the state-building and the socialist. The first concerns the defence of state and national interests, the second the social dimension of its politics and, as the party puts it, care for workers and the most vulnerable. The combination of those two lines has formed the backbone of the identity the socialists have presented to voters for three and a half decades.

In his address, Dacic went a step beyond the usual rhetoric of continuity. He stressed that the socialists do not forget the historical contribution of Slobodan Milosevic, the party’s founder and a former president of Serbia and Yugoslavia. With that, the party leadership explicitly tied the current politics of the SPS to a figure who, three decades on, remains one of the most contested in recent Serbian history.

For part of the public, such a message confirms that the SPS deliberately cultivates its 1990s heritage as part of its political identity. Critical media recalled the context of that legacy, from the wars across the former Yugoslavia to economic collapse and international isolation, describing the celebration of Milosevic’s role as problematic, especially ahead of elections. The party, for its part, says this is respect for its own history rather than a revision of the past.

Why does the message matter now?

The SPS has spent its 36 years as a constant fixture of power, at times a dominant party, at times a coalition partner. That very adaptability has kept it alive through changes of government and political cycles. The appeal to the founder’s legacy, in a year when the electoral campaign is expected to sharpen, reads as an attempt to consolidate the traditional electorate, the one the SPS still ties to the 1990s and to Milosevic himself.

At the same time, openly invoking Milosevic carries risk. As the opposition rallies around messages about the accountability of those in power and a break with the practices of the past, any reminder of the most contested period of recent history hands opponents campaign material. Dacic, a seasoned politician who has shifted positions within the ruling coalition more than once, surely knows that calculation.

The question that remains is how voters and coalition partners will read this year’s birthday message: as the confidence of a party that will not disown its roots, or as a sign that the socialists are returning, in a new electoral cycle, to tested but divisive symbolism. What do you think, does invoking the legacy of Slobodan Milosevic win the SPS votes today, or cost them?