Milicevic quits SPS, urges vote for Student List

Boris Milicevic, who announced on October 12 that he was leaving the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS), told FoNet today that everyone who values freedom, human rights and socialist principles should vote for the Student List. Until his departure he sat on the party’s Main Board and Presidency. Party leader Ivica Dacic has meanwhile responded to the defections by saying it does not matter whether “some mosquito” leaves, and in a statement from his list he asked why everyone attacks them if they are irrelevant.

What did Milicevic say about voting for the Student List?

In his words, this is not the moment to debate who decided when to back the students. It is a decisive historical moment in which every vote needed for a Student List victory counts. When it was put to him that it is legitimate to ask why someone has only now made up their mind, he answered that such a question “misses the point.”

He summed up his position in one sentence:

“Wars are won by the third-call draftees.”

He then added a comparison from history:

“Partisan commemorative medals are not being handed out now. They were awarded to those who were part of the First Proletarian Brigade and who had been with the Partisans since 1941.”

Milicevic also said the authorities’ strategy is to put as many voters off voting as possible. “Because of such debates, Vucic’s bots are clicking like,” he said. He added that his former party no longer interests him and that he will not be dealing with its result in the October 25 election.

Is Milicevic part of Ruzic’s project?

Milicevic did not confirm speculation that he could join the political project of Branko Ruzic, a former senior SPS official who was expelled from the party and plans to launch a new one in November. He said he had not discussed founding a new party with Ruzic and that Ruzic’s activities had not influenced his decision to support the students. Asked about the connection, he replied: “Maybe Ruzic is my man, why shouldn’t he be my man? Maybe I am my own man and I make decisions based on completely different criteria.” He added that his life does not depend “on Branko, or Ivica (Dacic), or anyone.”

About himself, he said he rents his home, owns neither an apartment nor a car, rides a bicycle and lives on a salary. He considers himself a poor politician, and added: “For thirty years, and before that too, people have watched politicians cash in. There are people in politics who never cashed in.”

What did Milicevic tell Dacic on Instagram?

He announced his decision on October 12 on Instagram, in a message addressed directly to Ivica Dacic. He wrote that the decision was not easy because of the many dear people in the party and the experience he had gained, but that there were many reasons for it.

“I will not list all the reasons for my decision, there are many. After all, I talked to you about them in good time, unfortunately to no effect. As a one-time top student of the Faculty of Political Sciences, you know that responsibility cannot be escaped, however hard many in Serbia work to undermine this concept. And I consider myself a responsible man, ready to accept all the consequences of the above decision.”

He said he had earlier told Dacic that it was up to him whether he would go from being the man who revived the SPS to being the man who reduced the party to political survival without a serious plan or identity. He also warned him that his greatest responsibility was to keep the SPS from turning into a Yugoslav Left. He then listed what, in his view, the leadership has done:

“However, you chose not only to stay silent about the violation of citizens’ human rights and the erosion of institutions, but also to defend the lack of accountability for the mass crime in Novi Sad. You chose violence against citizens, which culminated on March 15, 2025. You chose to glorify a war criminal. You chose an anti-European policy. You chose to persecute and silence party dissenters.”

He wished Dacic and his former comrades much success and happiness in their personal lives, adding that he fears there has “long been neither the will nor the room” for political success. Milicevic has been a member of the Main Board since 2010, and in 2013, according to Vreme, he was an adviser to Ruzic, who was then a minister without portfolio in charge of European integration.

Who else has left since Ruzic’s expulsion?

The SPS statutory commission unanimously expelled Ruzic on August 31, 2026. He had earlier been suspended for six months for attending the March 15, 2025 protest. Since the expulsion, according to Vreme, the party has been left by Dejan Curcic, a Main Board member, Milan Stepanovic, head of the municipal board in Kursumlija, Main Board members Milutin Ruzic and Mateja Rankovic, and Branko Prodanovic, head of the municipal board in Zubin Potok. Andrija Radivojevic from Paracin resigned from all his posts. Vreme also reports 16 members of the Socialist Youth and 13 members from Rakovica, among them a candidate for parliament.

The latest to request to leave was Ivan Djokovic, until recently a vice president of the SPS Provincial Committee. He announced that he will be among the initiators of Ruzic’s new party, whose registration is expected in November.

How did Dacic respond to the departures?

The party describes the departures as the creation of a “media picture.” In a statement on the evening of October 12, Dacic rejected claims that the SPS is collapsing because it has lost officials such as Ruzic, who he said was expelled for violating the party statute, and asked why he had been invited to appear as a guest if the party had collapsed.

“Whether some mosquito leaves is irrelevant, the SPS remains as an institution.”

The sources disagree on where he said it. Beta, as carried by Nova.rs, reports that he said it for Radio-Television of Vojvodina and quotes the sentence in full, while Vreme writes that it was said on TV Pink and carries it with part omitted. At a campaign rally in the Belgrade Arena, Dacic called appeals by former members to vote for the Student List a betrayal, and on the same occasion announced his candidacy for president of Serbia:

“So, these are not just parliamentary elections. Anyone who wants me to be a candidate for president should vote for us in the parliamentary elections too, for list number two.”

Dacic also claims that more than 17,000 people were registered at the Arena entrances, and that several thousand more then came in because there was nothing left to register them with.

What does Dacic say in the statement from list number 2?

In a statement from the “Ivica Dacic - Stability Factor” coalition, published on October 13, Dacic responds to challenges to the crowd figure at the Arena and to assessments that the list is weak. He does not say who makes these claims or where the statement was given.

“If we are irrelevant, why does everyone attack us? Why are they preoccupied with us if we are weak? Today we are witnessing that the SPS is under attack from all sides throughout the campaign, and even when it fills the Belgrade Arena they try to present it as artificial intelligence having filled the arena and colored over 20,000 people red. When they look at the picture from our Arena, to them it is a mirage. They will never understand that the SPS has its loyal electorate, that our idea will never be stifled, and that we reds will never tire or calm down. So if we are so small, why all your concern and attention aimed at our coalition, and how many seats will we win? Thank you for your attention!”

Dacic does not give the figure of 20,000 here as the number of people present, but as the number of people whom, as he puts it, some claim artificial intelligence put in the Arena.

Where does the SPS stand ahead of the October 25 election?

The “Ivica Dacic - Stability Factor” coalition, which includes the SPS, JS, SDPS and Greens of Serbia, is number two on the ballot, and the Student List is number three. The threshold is three percent. According to polls cited by Vreme, the SPS stands at 3.8 percent according to CRTA and 4.9 percent according to Faktor plus, so slightly above the threshold.

We have previously reported on Ruzic’s support for the Student List and the announcement of his party. The question that remains until voting day is whether the SPS will see more departures, on which none of the sources gives any data.