Zoran Krasić

Krasić was elected to the Assembly of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia's Chamber of Citizens in the 1992–93 Yugoslavian parliamentary election.[6] The election was won by the Socialist Party and its Montenegrin allies, and the Radical Party served in opposition. Krasić emerged as a notable spokesperson for his party in this period.[7] He was re-elected in the 1996 Yugoslavian election, which was again won by the Socialist Party and its allies.[8] Concurrent with the 1996 federal election, Krasić took part in a hunger strike called by various opposition parties in Niš to protest against what was described as the "flagrant irregularity" of conditions in local elections that benefited the Socialist Party.[9] Krasić subsequently protested the election results, charging unfair practices and "chaos in polling stations," and promised that the Radical Party would try to prevent the functioning of the local assembly.[10]

The Radical Party joined a coalition government led by the Socialist Party on March 24, 1998, and Krasić was named as trade minister in the government of Serbian prime minister Mirko Marjanović.[11] The following month, he announced that charges would be pressed against directors of firms that had created "false shortages" in the market and raised their prices following a currency devaluation.[12] He later announced that the trade ministry's priority under his leadership would be to fight against monopolies that had created artificial shortages, introduced price pressures, and imported unneeded raw materials.[13]

Following the start of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)'s 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia, Krasić announced that earnings and pensions would be equalized due to wartime conditions, specifically saying that the gap between the highest and lowest salaries would be reduced to permit a more equal provision of basic necessities. He also said that the government would seek to avoid the use of food coupons.[14] In early May 1999, he announced that Serbia was facing a shortage of gasoline and oil derivatives due to NATO bombs having destroyed the country's oil-refining facilities; he added that the country was also facing a shortage of cigarettes due to the Niš Tobacco Industry only working a few hours a day, when the air-raid sirens were not in force.[15] This notwithstanding, he announced on May 19 that market supplies of agricultural foodstuffs and related products were generally satisfactory given the conditions of war.[16]

The Radical Party threatened to withdraw from government in June 1999, when NATO forces entered Kosovo in the aftermath of the bombing campaign. Krasić was quoted as saying at this time, "We have been deceived by our coalition partners. [...] Where there are no Yugoslav troops, and no Serb police [in Kosovo], there is no state sovereignty."[17] Ultimately, however, the party remained in government.

In late 1999, Krasić announced that Serbia would use "subsidies, bonuses, allowances, tax and contribution relief, and other means" to avoid a price increase of staple goods.[18] Bosnian Serb Television subsequently reported in February 2000 that his ministry had unexpectedly blocked food exports from Yugoslavia to the Republika Srpska.[19]

Krasić stood down from cabinet on October 24, 2000, following Slobodan Milošević's defeat in the 2000 Yugoslavian presidential election, an event that precipitated a broad transformation of Serbian politics. He was defeated in his own bid for re-election to the Yugoslavian parliament in the concurrent parliamentary election.[20]

Krasić received the twenty-fourth position on the Radical Party's electoral list for the 2000 Serbian parliamentary election, in which the entire country was counted as a single electoral constituency.[21] The party won twenty-three seats, and he was not initially included in its parliamentary delegation. (From 2000 to 2011, Serbian parliamentary mandates were awarded to sponsoring parties or coalitions rather than to individual candidates, and it was common practice for mandates to be awarded out of numerical order. Krasić could have been awarded a mandate notwithstanding his position on the list, although in fact he was not.)[22] He was, however, awarded a mandate on March 18, 2003, as a replacement for party leader Vojislav Šešelj, who had resigned to face war crimes charges at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague.[23][24] Krasić was again included on the party's list for the 2003 election and was selected for its assembly delegation when the party won eighty-two seats.[25][26]

In June 2006, Ivana Dulić-Marković, an ethnic Croat from the G17 Plus party, was appointed as a deputy prime minister in Vojislav Koštunica's government. When the appointment was announced in parliament, Krasić responded by accusing Dulić-Marković's family of having been Ustaše during World War II and by making the disparaging comment, "Take your deputy prime minister Dulić-Marković and let her bring her Ustaše to be her advisers [...] That is the same woman who has said that [Milošević's] government slaughtered and transported people in bloody containers, etc..."[27] Krasić's comments were widely condemned;[28] Serbian president Boris Tadić and others described them as hate speech, targeting the minister because of her ethnic origins, while G17 Plus sought to ban the Radical Party over the incident.[29] Aleksandar Vučić, at the time the secretary-general of the Radical Party, responded that Krasić had referred to Ustaše in an ideological rather than an ethnic sense, and dismissed calls for an apology.[30][31] Shortly after the incident, the Radical Party nominated Krasić as one of its choices for Serbia's delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, a decision that was strongly opposed by the governing parties.[32] The National Assembly ultimately determined that Krasić's remarks did not violate its rule of procedure.[33]

Krasić was again returned to parliament following the 2007 and 2008 elections, in both instances after receiving high positions on the Radical Party's electoral list.[34] He served as part of Šešelj's legal team during this time.[35] In 2008, he spoke at a rally opposing the extradition of former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić to The Hague.[36]

The Radical Party experienced a serious split in late 2008, with several members joining the more moderate Serbian Progressive Party under Tomislav Nikolić's leadership. Krasić remained with the Radicals and was a prominent member of its hardline, pro-Šešelj faction.[37] He was selected as chair of the parliamentary finance committee in January 2009, amidst the backdrop of a purging of former-Radicals-turned-Progressives from positions of committee leadership.[38] At around the same time, he was chosen to be the leader of Šešelj's legal defence team.[39] When Šešelj experienced serious health issues in custody in early 2012, Krasić said that the tribunal should end what he described as its "torture" of the Radical Party leader and permit him to return to Serbia.[40]

In 2010, the Radical Party introduced a draft resolution to parliament recognizing and condemning the Armenian Genocide committed by the Ottoman Empire. At a press conference to announce the legislation, Krasić said, "Under pressure by the international community, some parties are trying to push through the Serbian parliament a resolution on Srebrenica, which would include the term genocide, although what happened in Srebrenica cannot be compared to the plight of Armenians or of over one million people in Rwanda."[41]

Serbia's electoral system was reformed in 2011, such that parliamentary mandates were awarded in numerical order to candidates on successful lists. Krasić received the fourth position on the Radical Party's list in the 2012 parliamentary election,[42] but the party failed to cross the electoral threshold to win representation in the assembly. He was again included on the Radical list for the 2014 election, in which the party once again failed to win representation.[43] During the buildup to the latter election, some had suggested the possibility of an alliance between the Radical Party and other right-wing, nationalist parties such as the Democratic Party of Serbia and Dveri. Krasić dismissed this view, arguing that the other parties were compromised by their willingness to co-operate with the European Union and NATO.[44]

The Radicals returned to parliament with the 2016 election, winning twenty-two mandates. Krasić, who received the fifth position on the party's list, was accordingly re-elected.[45] At the time of his death, he was a member of the parliamentary committee on constitutional and legislative issues; a member of the committee on finance, state budget, and control of public spending; and a member of the parliamentary friendship groups with Iran and Israel.[46] The Radical Party served in opposition throughout all of Krasić's terms in the assembly.