Saša Radulović announcing the coalition with Tadić’s SDS
Photo: YouTube Printscreen
BELGRADE – Leader of the “Enough is Enough – Sovereignists” Saša Radulović has announced an electoral coalition with the Social Democratic Party (SDS), led by former President of Serbia Boris Tadić.
Tadić was initially negotiating to be a part of the “Serbia Against Violence” coalition, while Radulović participated in the talks on a joint electoral list of the right-wing opposition. Both negotiating failed and the two parties seem to have reached an agreement on a joint list in the past couple of days.
Tadić’s SDS is a pro-EU centre-left party, while Radulović’s party joined the Eurosceptic European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) Party in 2019 and has taken right-wing populist positions on multiple issues.
In his speech announcing the coalition, Radulović acknowledged these ideological differences, but said that, in these elections, “the main topic is Kosovo and Metohija and the Franco-German agreement”, which refers to the Brussels/Ohrid agreement accepted earlier this year.
“Our political options have significant differences, for example on EU accession. We do not hide these differences. However, we believe that this is an important historical moment and that we need to set these differences aside because, for us, the issue of Kosovo and Metohija is the most important issue of these elections and not one vote of the people who are against the Franco-German proposal should remain under the threshold”, Radulović said.
Tadić was also critical of the agreement, which was accepted verbally by President Aleksandar Vučić, saying he would not sign it in an interview earlier this year. He is yet to issue a statement on the coalition.
Boris Tadić is the former President of Serbia (2004-2012) and former leader of the centre-left Democratic Party (DS) which, at the time, was one of the two strongest parties in the country. Having lost the 2012 presidential election, Tadić soon left the party, setting up SDS, with which he managed to enter parliament in 2014 and 2016 as a part of the coalition.
In 2022 election, Tadić once again ran in a coalition, but won 1.72% of the vote and failed to enter the parliament.
Saša Radulović is a former Minister of Economy in the Government of Serbia (2013-2014), who subsequently founded a technocratic populist “Enough is Enough” (DJB) movement, which focused on the fight against corruption and reforming the state apparatus, and won 6% in the 2016 parliamentary elections.
Following subsequent poorer electoral results, DJB shifted to the right, adopting anti-EU views and focusing on the issue of Kosovo, which previously was not the main part of its program. The party has held similar views to the new European right-wing parties, adopting anti-immigrant and anti-COVID restrictions stances. On some occasions, Radulović has promoted conspiracy theories, such as the chemtrail theory.
Last year, DJB ran in a coalition which won 2.34% of the vote.
