Ruzic Urges SPS to Run Without SNS in Next Election
SPS deputy leader Branko Ruzic told Austrian news agency APA the Socialists could win up to seven percent only if they break from SNS. The party has not yet decided whether to run on a joint ticket.
Branko Ruzic, deputy chairman of the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS), has called on his party’s leadership to draw clear lines it will not cross to stay in power, and to run in the next election on its own list, separate from the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS). He made the case in an interview with the Austrian news agency APA, which Serbian media picked up on Thursday, August 6.
The statement lands at a moment when SPS still has not decided whether it will run independently in the upcoming election or as part of the SNS ticket. President Aleksandar Vucic has said repeatedly in recent weeks that parliamentary and presidential elections could be held sometime between the end of this year and February 2027, though no exact date has been set. Ruzic argues the campaign in Serbia is effectively already underway, regardless of when the vote is formally called.
Discussing the relationship between the two parties that together make up the government, Ruzic disputed that it amounts to a coalition in any real sense, since cooperation, he said, requires the right to disagree.
“A partner denied the right to hold an independent position is no longer a partner, it becomes an appendage. That is the problem with the so called cooperation between Vucic’s party and the Socialist Party of Serbia,” Ruzic told APA.
He added that the positions many senior SPS officials hold today lose all value if the price is giving up their own political convictions. Running independently, by his calculation, would leave the Socialists free to talk to other potential partners after election day, not only the one they have now.
Why Does Ruzic Cite Seven Percent When Polls Show 3.8?
The gap between those two numbers is the core of the dispute inside the party. According to a survey conducted in June by CRTA and Stanford University’s Democracy Action Lab, the Students’ List has the support of about 44.9 percent of voters, SNS about 35.7 percent, and SPS would get roughly 3.8 percent. The Socialists, in other words, are sitting right at the edge of the three percent election threshold.
Ruzic insists that clearing the threshold would not be the problem, and that the ceiling is far higher.
“The Socialists have the potential to reach seven percent on their own,” he told the Austrian agency.
He was specific about the conditions. In his view, SPS could only get to that number if it:
- insists on fighting corruption,
- works to rebuild trust in institutions,
- and clearly distances itself from SNS and from attacks on the student movement.
None of those three conditions is met by a decision to run on a joint list. If SPS enters parliament as part of the Progressive slate, the party’s own result is never measured on its own, so the seven percent claim stays an untested proposition until the next election cycle.
The Suspension That Defined His Position
Ruzic is not a random voice in this debate. He has been an SPS member for more than 30 years and served as education minister until 2023, resigning from that post after a mass shooting at a Belgrade elementary school.
In early April 2025, the SPS Statutory Committee suspended him from all party functions for six months, in a unanimous decision. The statement issued at the time said “SPS Main Board deputy chairman Branko Ruzic has been found to have seriously violated the SPS Statute by taking part in demonstrations and a protest against the government of which SPS is a part, which is contrary to the party’s decisions and policy.” The trigger was the large student protest in Belgrade on March 15.
The suspension expired on October 6, 2025, which Ruzic confirmed at the time to Nedeljnik, and he was reinstated as deputy chairman of the Main Board, a Presidency member and a Main Board member. Ten months later, the same man is publicly demanding the party do exactly what got him punished, break away from the senior partner’s politics. How the leadership responds will be the first real test of whether restoring his posts marked a change of course or simply the end of a sentence.
What Comes Next
Ruzic described the coming election as a possible start of a new era, but doubts it will be entirely fair given the current level of control over media and public institutions.
“I don’t think the fairness of a future election is decided only once the ballots are counted. If the campaign is marked by pressure on employees in public companies or state administration, unequal access to media, and abuse of public institutions, then election day itself cannot undo what came before it,” he said.
He described the state of the country since the student protests began in November 2024 as dangerous.
“When the protests started, I said we don’t need authoritarian rule, but that we also have to stop ourselves from sliding into anarchy. I think our society is currently somewhere between those two extremes. That is a very dangerous position,” Ruzic said.
He named as his goal a state that functions independently of whoever is in power, with military neutrality on the Austrian model and a pro European course. The decision on the list, however, cannot wait much longer. The deadline for filing election lists runs from the day the election is called, and Vucic’s announced window closes by February 2027 at the latest, leaving the Socialists at most a few months to decide how they will face voters.
