Serbian parliamentary election, 2003

Parliamentary elections were held in the Republic of Serbia on December 28, 2003. The Republic of Serbia is one of the two federal units of Serbia and Montenegro, formely known as Yugoslavia.

Serbia has been in a state of political crisis since the overthrow of the last communist ruler, Slobodan Milosevic, in 2001. The reformers, led by former Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica, have been unable to gain control of the Serbian presidency because three successive presidential elections have failed to produce the required 50% turnout (see details here). The assassination of the reforming Prime Minister, Zoran Djindjic, in 2002, was a major setback.

At these elections the former reformist alliance, the Democratic Opposition of Serbia, had broken up into three parts: Kostunica's Democratic Party of Serbia, Prime Minister Boris Tadic's Democratic Party and the G17 Plus group of liberal economists.

Opposing them were the ultra-nationalist Serbian Radical Party of Vojislav Seselj and Milosevic's Socialist Party of Serbia (descended from the former Yugoslav Communist Party). Both Seselj and Milosevic are currently in detention at The Hague, where they are charged with war crimes.

The remaining party was the monarchist Serbian Renewal Movement-New Serbia, led by Vuk Draskovic. Although Draskovic is also an extreme Serb nationalist, he hates Seselj and is seen as more likely to support the reformist parties.

National summary of votes and seats

At the 2000 elections, the Democratic Opposition of Serbia polled 67.0% of the vote and won 178 seats. Of these, the DSS won 46 and the DS won 45.

The overall result of this election is that despite the great increase in support for the Radicals, the four pro-reform parties (DS, DSS, G17 and SRM-NS) won 49.8% of the vote, compared with 34.8% for the two anti-western parties, the Radicals and the Socialists, and won 147 seats to 103.

The high vote for the Radicals reflects partly the collapse of the once-dominant Socialists and the transfer of their vote to the opposite, but equally anti-Western, pole of politics, and partly the inflamed state of Serbian nationalist sentiment, which sees Serbia as the victim of a Western conspiracy following the loss of the Serbian-speaking areas within Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina and the NATO-led occupation of Kosovo.