Russian Party – Serbia in BRICS – Slobodan Nikolić

It is led by Slobodan Nikolić, born in 1957 in Šabac, founder and president of the party, a former Šabac city councillor and a member of the National Assembly since February 2024. The list stands in the 25 October 2026 Serbian parliamentary election.

History

The Russian Party was founded on 9 June 2013 as a split from the People's Peasant Party. It won no seats in the 2014, 2016 and 2020 national elections and did not run in 2022; in 2023 it ran in alliance with the New Communist Party of Yugoslavia and won one seat. Slobodan Nikolić worked as a statistician, in commerce and in his own business, directed the rural association "Village Threshold 98" from 2001 to 2005, sat on the Šabac city council from 2006 to 2015, and since 2010 has headed the Serbian-Russian Friendship Association "Vladimir Putin" in Šabac. He sits in the Serbian delegation to the parliamentary assembly of the Collective Security Treaty Organization.

Positions

Wikipedia lists the party's ideology as Russian minority interests, Serbian nationalism, social conservatism and Russophilia. Its programme calls for Serbia to join the Eurasian Economic Union and become a full member of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, with closer economic, cultural and educational ties with Russia. Nikolić opposed Serbia imposing sanctions on Russia over the invasion of Ukraine, and told President Vučić so. The Danas daily reported in June 2024 that he sits in a parliamentary club with deputies of Aleksandar Vulin's party, part of the governing majority.

Controversies

In June 2024 Danas journalist Vojin Radovanović wrote that the party is one of several "false minority parties" that use legal loopholes, such as the lower threshold for minority lists, for political gain. The same report said its single councillor in Niš cast the deciding vote that gave the Progressive Party control of the city. Wikipedia cites legal expert Sofija Mandić, who says the party appears only when elections come.

Summarised automatically from the linked sources. N1 · Danas · Wikipedia · Wikipedia