DSS was formed as a conservative split from the Democratic Party (DS) and has played a key role in the opposition during the 1990s. It was a part of the "Together" coalition and was later a founding member of the Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS). Its first leader, Vojislav Koštunica, was elected president of Yugoslavia in 2000, a role which he served until 2003. DSS left the DOS government in 2001 and served in the opposition until the 2003 parliamentary election, after which it managed to form a government with other right-wing parties. Koštunica was appointed prime minister, and after 2008, it went to the opposition again after being unable to form a government. It saw its decline in the 2010s and failed to pass the threshold in the 2014 parliamentary election, leading to Koštunica resigning from the position as party leader. He was replaced by Sanda Rašković Ivić, and in 2016, DSS managed to enter the National Assembly again, this time in a coalition with Dveri. Rašković Ivić was ousted after the parliamentary election and was replaced by Miloš Jovanović as president of the party.
The DSS first competed in the December 1992 parliamentary elections. As part of DEPOS, the DSS received 18 seats in the National Assembly of Serbia - which grew to 20 after non-party-aligned members of DEPOS decided to leave the Parliament. Soon, similar differences of opinion over ways in which to fight the ruling Socialist Party of Serbia and the DSS's belief in Serbian nationalism led to a division in DEPOS too. The DSS left the coalition in mid-1993.[1]
Next parliamentary elections in Serbia were called prematurely for 19 December 1993. This time DSS ran independently and received seven seats. This was a period of the party's political stagnation as most nationalist votes went to the Serbian Radical Party. It did not have enough seats to significantly influence matters in Serbia and was left without representation in the Federal Assembly.
In 1996, opposition Zajedno (Together) coalition was created. DSS entered the 1996 federal parliamentary elections as part of the coalition and won four seats in the Federal Assembly.[1]
In the December 2000 Serbian parliamentary election, the Democratic Opposition of Serbia won 64.7% of the popular vote, securing 176 seats in the National Assembly. The DSS was allocated 45 seats. In the ensuing Democratic Opposition of Serbia coalition government, DSS had very little influence with just two cabinet-level ministerial posts, that of Deputy Prime Minister (held by Aleksandar Pravdić) and Minister of Health (held by Obren Joksimović) as well as very few second tier posts of Deputy Minister. The DSS was unhappy with the direction of the DOS Government policy and split from the coalition in late 2001.[2]
In 2004 NDS left the coalition with DSS, leaving it with 50 seats in the National Assembly. However, in 2005 both the NDS and the SDS merged into the DSS, bringing its size to 52 seats in the National Assembly.
In the early 2008 parliamentary election held in May 2008 following the self-proclaimed declaration of independence by the Serbian province of Kosovo, the DSS won 30 seats in the National Assembly in coalition with New Serbia. It won 480,987 votes representing 11.62% of the electorate. In coalition with New Serbia 2008–10, it formed the second largest opposition block in the Serbian parliament.
Since 2008 the DSS has positioned itself as a staunch defender of the premise that Kosovo should remain within Serbia (in some shape or form) and that further negotiations must take place to determine a workable political outcome regarding Kosovo and Serbia. Because of this approach, the DSS is against Serbia joining the EU if in return it is bound to acknowledge the legitimacy of the self-proclaimed independent Kosovo.
The party has become increasingly nationalist and eurosceptic since the independence of Kosovo. In 2012, Vojislav Koštunica stated that the EU is destroying Serbia and that Serbia should abstain on EU membership. The party subsequently left the European People's Party in February 2012.[3]
The party competed independently in the 2012 parliamentary elections in May 2012 and received around 7% of the popular vote (273,532 votes) translating into 21 Members of Parliament.
2014–present
In 2014, founder and first president of DSS Vojislav Koštunica left the party over its abandonment of the idea of political neutrality. Subsequently, Slobodan Samardžić, Dragan Jočić, Vladeta Janković and Dejan Mihajlov also announced their departure in response to differences of opinion over the course of DSS.
On 26 January 2021, DSS and the Movement for the Restoration of the Kingdom of Serbia (POKS) signed an agreement on joint action and agreed on a joint political-program platform called the National-Democratic Alternative.[4] In early May, the National-Democratic Alternative was transformed into a pre-electoral coalition.[5] On 24 May, the 14th party assembly was held in which Jovanović was re-elected as the president of the party, while Dejan Šulkić, Zoran Sandić, and Predrag Marsenić were elected as vice-presidents.[6] DSS changed its name to New Democratic Party of Serbia following the 15th assembly on 29 May 2022.[7]
^Nezi, Spyridoula; Sotiropoulos, Dimitri; Toka, Panayiota (August 2009). "Explaining the Attitudes of Parliamentarians towards European Integration in Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia: Party Affiliation, 'Left-Right' Self-placement or Country Origin?". Europe-Asia Studies. Glasgow: Routledge. p. 1006. ISSN0966-8136.
^Chun, Kwang-Ho (2011). Kosovo: A New European Nation-State?. International Area Studies Review. p. 91.
^Ramet, Sabrina (2010). Serbia since July 2008: at the Doorstep of the EU. p. 20.
^Three freedoms under the magnifying glass: Review of violations of freedom of association, assembly and expression in Serbia from March to July 2019. Three Freedoms Platform. 2019. p. 4.
^Orlović, Slaviša; Antonić, Slobodan; Vukomanović, Dijana; Stojiljković, Zoran; Vujačić, Ilija; Đurković, Miša; Mihailović, Srećko; Gligorov, Vladimir; Komšić, Jovan; Pajvančić, Marijana; Pantić, Dragomir (2007). Ideologija i političke stranke u Srbiji [Ideology and Political Parties in Serbia] (PDF) (in Serbian). Belgrade: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Faculty of Political Sciences, Institute for Humanities. ISBN978-86-83767-23-6. Archived from the original(PDF) on 27 November 2013. Retrieved 17 July 2001.
^Čavoški, Aleksandra (December 2015). Idealism or realism in the process of EU enlargement: The case of Serbia. Birmingham: East European Quarterly. p. 279. ISSN0012-8449.
^Drezgić, Rada (2010). "Religion, Politics and Gender in the Context of Nation-State Formation: the case of Serbia". Third World Quarterly. 31 (6). Belgrade: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.: 955–970. doi:10.1080/01436597.2010.502728. PMID20857571. S2CID33001865.
^Serbia Country Report. Gütersloh: Bertelsmann Transformation Index. 2010. p. 2.
^Gligorov, Vladimir (February 2007). Serbia: stability at risk. p. 2.
^Woehrel, Steven (May 2013). Serbia: Current Issues and U.S. Policy. Washington D.C.: Congressional Research Service. p. 1.