The Founding Committee of the Democratic Party

The Founding Committee of the Democratic Party (DS) were a group of pro-democracy activists and intellectuals who believed in transforming the communist one-party political system in SFR Yugoslavia into a democratic civil society. They included anti-communist dissidents and liberal academics, well-known poets, writers and film and theatre directors, who all came together in December 1989 to begin the process of re-establishing the Democratic Party, which was to be the first opposition, non-communist political party in Serbia since 1945.^[1]

The first public proclamation of the Founding Committee was made on 11 December 1989 at a press conference held in Belgrade where the members publicly declared their intention to re-establish the Democratic Party (DS) which had been banned by the communists in 1945. The Founding Committee called upon all democratically minded citizens to join them in this endeavour.

There were thirteen signatories to the initial proclamation made by the members of the Founding Committee setting out their intention to initiate the re-establishment of the Democratic Party:

Over the following weeks nine other prominent intellectuals joined the thirteen initiators as members of the Founding Committee. They all worked together towards re-establishing the Democratic Party by drafting the first party political program and making preparations for the founding party conference.^[2]

By the end of December 1989, the Founding Committee also included:

In the first two weeks of January the Founding Committee drafted the political program of the soon to be re-established Democratic Party which was published on 18 January 1990 as the "Pismo o namerama" (Letter of intent) to inform the public of the democratic principles and policies which the Democratic Party would pursue. The Letter of Intent was signed by all the 22 Members of the Founding Committee.^[3]

Throughout January 1990 the Founding Committee worked on publicising the party's proposed political program and its democratic aims. It worked on gathering potential party members to ensure a successful founding conference. It finally organised the founding conference of the renewed Democratic Party on 3 February 1990 at which the party was formally re-established by several hundred founder members, including former members from the 1940s and a younger generation of new members. At the founding conference the founder members elected the party President, the Executive and General Committees tasked with running the party. Following the founding conference the party started establishing local committees and networks throughout Serbia.

However, the Democratic Party was strictly an illegal organisation until late spring of 1990 when it was finally given permission to be formally registered as a political party by the Communist regime. At that time the party newspaper Demokratija (Democracy) was also established to inform the public of what the DS was trying to achieve, since the Communist controlled state media did not give any coverage to it.

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