Saša Janković was in the position of state ombudsman from 2007 to 2017 and as such, he often criticised practices of the government, led by the Serbian Progressive Party and Aleksandar Vučić. This positioned him among voters as opposition spokesperson and led to him enjoying relatively high ratings in relation to actual opposition leaders and politicians.[1] As his term was about to end, he decided to resign and run in the presidential elections, scheduled for April 2017. His most notable endorsement came from the Democratic Party, which decided to support Janković, rather than to have a candidate of its own.[2] This helped him create a relatively united front against Vučić in the upcoming elections.
In the 2017 leadership elections Janković finished second with 16.3% of the vote and decided to form his own political movement, rather than joining the Democratic Party. His movement "Apel 100", formed for the purposes of gathering support from intellectuals and other notable citizens for his presidential candidacy, was thus transformed into a political organisation, the Movement of Free Citizens.[3]
Some of the founders of the Movement are Goran Marković, Zdravko Šotra, Nikola Đuričko, Sergej Trifunović, Srbijanka Turajlić, Borka Pavićević and Vlado Georgiev. Many of the founding members left the Movement by November 2017, accusing Janković of running it like his own 'company', and revealed that Janković's wife exerts enormous influence on how the Movement is run.[4] Following the accusations, the Movement's Presidency held an emergency meeting, where Janković offered his resignation, a motion denied by the Presidency.[5] This turmoil within the Movement led political analysts and other opposition leaders and politicians to question the capacity of Janković and the Movement to lead the opposition against Vučić's government.[6]
On 17 December 2018 Janković resigned.[7] Candidates for the new president were actor Sergej Trifunović and lawyer Aleksandar Olenik. Elections were held on 26 January 2019, and Trifunović won with 60% of the votes.[8] Olenik and most of other high officials left the movement and announced creation of new party, Civic Democratic Forum.[9]
The PSG's candidates in the 2023 Serbian parliamentary election carried formal endorsements from the Civic Democratic Party (GDP). In early 2024, the Civic Democratic Party permitted the Movement of Free Citizens to take over its party registration, and the PSG for the first time became an officially registered party.[13]
^See ИЗВОД ИЗ РЕГИСТРА ПОЛИТИЧКИХ СТРАНАКА, Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-Government, Government of Serbia, 11 October 2023, p. 14, accessed 8 April 2023; and ИЗВОД ИЗ РЕГИСТРА ПОЛИТИЧКИХ СТРАНАКА, Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-Government, Government of Serbia, 28 March 2024, p. 14.
^Beckmann-Dierkes, Norbert; Rankić, Slađan (13 May 2022). "Parlamentswahlen in Serbien 2022". Konrad Adenauer Foundation (in German). p. 2. Retrieved 27 December 2022.
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