13 SPS Members in Rakovica Quit, Including a Candidate

Thirteen members of the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) in Rakovica issued a joint statement on October 9 saying they are leaving the party and resigning from all party posts. Among the signatories is Marko Radunovic, a candidate for member of parliament on the Ivica Dacic - Factor of Stability list, sixteen days before the parliamentary elections scheduled for October 25.

Who signed the statement on leaving the SPS?

Besides Radunovic, the statement was signed by:

• Srdjan Bekic
• Mihailo Radunovic
• Nebojsa Repac
• Matija Calic
• Uros Dincic
• Marko Djokovic
• Marko Tasic
• Milan Todorovic
• Marina Dimitrijevic
• Ivana Radunovic
• Zoran Aksentijevic
• Jovana Radosavljevic

The sources disagree on the number. Danas first reported unofficially that “more than 10” members had resigned, then stated in the same article that 13 people signed the statement and listed all 13 names. N1 and Nova have reported thirteen from the start. The sources do not say where Marko Radunovic ranks on the electoral list.

N1 describes the Rakovica branch as one of the more significant SPS branches in Belgrade.

What does the statement say?

The signatories say the situation in the party has reached the point where continuing to work within the existing structures has become incompatible with “the original principles for which we joined this organization.” According to N1, they are making the decision out of “the conviction that preserving ideological consistency, personal integrity and political morality is the only right path toward renewing genuinely left-wing values in society.” Danas reports that they also cite a long-running departure from the ideological foundations of democratic socialism, as well as the absence of open internal dialogue and substantive reform.

The sharpest message in the statement concerns the signatories’ own place in the party:

“As a generation that did not enter politics to pursue interests, we do not wish to legitimize, with our presence, the further erosion of the organization’s institutional integrity,” the joint statement of the thirteen says.

N1 and the FoNet news agency obtained the statement, and both say they had sight of it.

The second group in five days: what happened with the youth wing

The Rakovica departure comes five days after October 5, when 16 members and officials of the Socialist Youth of Serbia left the SPS, among them Mihajlo Skundric, Luka Ivancevic and Nikola Boskovic. In their statement they said: “We do not renounce socialist and social democratic values. We renounce the belief that they can be defended through silence, adaptation and acceptance of political facelessness.”

The president of the Socialist Youth, Filip Buklic, responded at the time that everyone has the right to leave a political organization and that nobody in the SPS questions that right. The purpose of the departure, he said, was “to produce a certain media image, not to present the real situation to the public.” He also said the youth wing has more than 7,000 members, has councils in 160 municipal and city organizations, and that 58 young people joined in the last month alone. He added:

“That is the real picture of our youth organization. The SPS does not measure its strength by individual departures, but by the people who stay, the organization we are building and the new generations joining it.”

Buklic’s words refer to the group of youth members, not to the departure from Rakovica. The sources we read record no reaction from the SPS leadership or from Ivica Dacic to the Rakovica group. On October 8, the day before the statement, Dacic described the SPS as an institution that people vote for out of conviction.

Where did the wave of departures begin?

Media link the start of the wave to the case of Branko Ruzic. He was suspended from all SPS functions for six months for attending the protest of students and citizens on March 15, and was expelled on August 31 for what was described as “continuous, conscious and deliberate violation of the Statute, failure to meet the obligation to carry out the decisions of party bodies and the unified policy of the SPS.” After the expulsion, N1 reports, a large number of members left the party.

Will Radunovic stay on the list?

The sources do not say whether Marko Radunovic has withdrawn his candidacy. According to N1 and Danas, his name is on the Ivica Dacic - Factor of Stability list, and citizens go to the polls on October 25.