Social Democratic Party (Serbia)

Not to be confused with Social Democratic Party of Serbia.

The Social Democratic Party (SDP) (Serbian Cyrillic: Социјалдемократска партија, Socijaldemokratska partija) was a political party in Serbia.

In May 2001 Social Democracy (SD) was excluded from the ruling Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS) coalition and forced into opposition. A split faction from the party, at the protest of DOS, was recognized by the Supreme Court as the legitimate bearer of the name, thus managing to get hold over all of SD's seats. This new Social Democracy merged with the Social Democratic Union in July 2002 in an effort to unite DOS social democratic currents, forming the Social Democratic Party within the DOS coalition. However, inner-party disagreements led to a fraction seceding in March 2003 recreating SDU under Žarko Korać. In November 2003 SDP announced that it would support the opposition's initiative to disband the government upon charges of corruption. As a result, it was immediately expelled from the DOS into the opposition.

At the 28 December 2003 parliamentary election, SDP ran on the list of the newly activated G17 Plus, from whom it received three seats. Slobodan Lalović became the Minister of Labour, Employment and Social Policy in Koštunica's minority government. In August 2005 SDP refused to support the proposed pension and oil industry laws which were the sticking point in Serbia's relationship with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). As a result two of its deputies stopped supporting the government. Ljilja Nestorović and Meho Omerović went into opposition, while the third MP Minister Slobodan Lalović kept his post, subsequently withdrawing from the party and becoming an independent MP. In December 2005 the two remaining SDP deputies formed together with three MPs from Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO) and Serbian Radical Party (SRS) the For European Serbia parliamentary club of Bogoljub Karić had allegedly bribed to join his Serbian Strength Movement party, by which SDP in effect became a non-parliamentary party.

The Democratic Alternative (DA) of Nebojša Čović that failed to pass the census on the 2003 parliamentary election merged and took over SDP, with its leadership taking charge over the Social Democratic Party. Nebojsa Covic became the party's President and remains to this day. DA's entrance has significantly strengthened SDP position, which has adopted a more current conservative program.

On January 30, 2006, this party became a member of Socialist International.

SDP ran on the 21 January 2007 parliamentary election together with the Party of United Pensioners of Serbia (PUPS) of Jovan Krkobabić. The PUPS-SDP coalition also included the Socialist People's Party. This coalition received 125,324 votes or 3.11% of the total turnout, thus failing to pass the census and enter the National Assembly of Serbia.

It ceased to exist in 2010.