Radojko Petrić

Petrić has a Master of Economics degree.^[1] For many years, he was director of the Ljubiša Miodragović textile combine.^[2]

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The Socialist Party dominated Serbian political life in the 1990s under the authoritarian rule of Slobodan Milošević.

Petrić was elected to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia's Chamber of Citizens in the May 1992 Yugoslavian parliamentary election, winning a narrow victory in the Prijepolje constituency. The SPS won a majority victory overall, due in part to a boycott by several leading opposition parties. Petrić was also elected to the Prijepolje municipal assembly in the May 1992 Serbian local elections, which took place concurrently with the federal vote. The Socialists won a landslide majority victory in the municipality, and when the assembly convened he was chosen as its president, a position that was then equivalent to mayor.^[3][4] In October 1992, he was elected as a member of the Socialist Party's main board.^[5]

Petrić's term as mayor of Prijepolje coincided with early period of the Bosnian War. In August 1992, he denied reports that Bosniak (Muslim) refugees from Bosnia and Herzegovina were being held in camps in Prijepolje and mistreated.^[6]

Due to ongoing questions about the legitimacy of the May elections, new federal and local elections took place in December 1992. Prior to the federal vote, Yugoslavia adopted a system of full proportional representation in which one-third of Chamber of Citizens mandates were assigned to candidates on successful lists in numerical order and the remaining two-thirds to other candidates at the discretion of the sponsoring parties and coalitions. Petrić appeared in the fifth position on the SPS's electoral list for Užice.^[7] The list won exactly five seats; the SPS chose to assign all of its "optional" mandates for Užice in numerical order, giving Petrić a mandate for a second term.^[8][9] The Socialists and their Montenegrin allies won the election, and Petrić again served as a government supporter.

Petrić was also re-elected to the Prijepolje assembly in the December 1992 Serbian local elections as the Socialists won a majority victory overall in the municipality. He was nominated for a second term as mayor but, due to divisions in the local ranks of the Socialist Party, did not receive enough support for the position.^[10] He continued to lead an interim administration until March 1993 and then stood down from office.

On 27 February 1993, near the end of Petrić's tenure as mayor, members of the "Avengers" Bosnian Serb paramilitary unit under the leadership of Milan Lukić kidnapped eighteen ethnic Bosniaks, one ethnic Croat, and one other person of unknown origin from a Belgrade–Bar train when it briefly crossed from Serbia into Bosnian territory. The victims were later tortured and murdered, an incident known as the Štrpci massacre. At least one of those kidnapped was from Prijepolje, and the incident contributed to a rise in tensions between Serbs and Bosniaks (Muslims) in the municipality.^[11] Petrić made some efforts to calm the situation, and in the very last days of his mayoralty he arranged for Serbian president Milošević to visit Prijepolje and meet with local Bosniak community representatives. Milošević said that he would "turn heaven and earth" to find the kidnap victims, and Petrić later credited him for preserving the peace of the area.^[12]

Evidence has since emerged that some high-ranking Serbian and Yugoslavian officials were complicit in the massacre, at least to the extent of having advance knowledge of the kidnapping and failing to prevent it. There have long been suspicions of broader collusion between the "Avengers" and Serbian authorities. There is, however, no suggestion that Petrić was personally implicated in these matters.^[13][14]

The Socialist Party contested in the 1996 Yugoslavian parliamentary election in an alliance with the Yugoslav Left (JUL) and New Democracy (ND). Petrić appeared in the second position out of four on the alliance's list for the smaller, redistributed Užice division.^[15] The list won two seats; on this occasion, he was not assigned a new mandate.^[a][16][17]

Slobodan Milošević was defeated in the 2000 Yugoslavian presidential election and subsequently fell from power on 5 October 2000. Serbia's republican government also fell after Milošević's defeat, and a new Serbian parliamentary election was called for December 2000. Prior to the vote, Serbia's electoral laws were reformed such that the entire country became a single at-large electoral division and all mandates were assigned to candidates on successful lists at the discretion of the sponsoring parties and coalitions, irrespective of numerical order.^[18]

Petrić appeared in the 171st position on the Socialist Party's list, which was mostly alphabetical, and was included in his party's parliamentary delegation after the list won thirty-seven mandates. He took his seat when the assembly convened in January 2001.^[19][20] The Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS) won a landslide victory overall, and the Socialists served in opposition for the term that followed. In the assembly, Petrić was a member of the foreign affairs committee and the committee on trade and tourism.^[21]

He appeared in the 177th position on the SPS's list in the 2003 Serbian parliamentary election; as in 2000, the list was mostly alphabetical.^[22] The Socialists won twenty-two seats, and he was not given a new assembly mandate.^[23] His term ended in January 2004.

Serbia adopted a system of proportional representation for municipal elections after Milošević's fall from power. The Socialists won four out of sixty-one seats in Prijepolje in the 2004 Serbian local elections, and Petrić was one of the party's representatives in the local assembly for the term that followed. The party was in opposition during this time.^[24][25]

The Socialists again won four seats in Prijepolje in the 2008 local elections.^[26] The municipality did not choose its government by the legal deadline, and a repeat election was held later in the year.

After the 2008 Serbian parliamentary election (which took place concurrently with the first local vote), the Socialists joined a coalition government at the republican level with the For a European Serbia (ZES) coalition, which was led by the Democratic Party (DS). The DS and SPS, along with G17 Plus and the Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO), ran a combined election list in Prijepolje for the repeat municipal vote, and the list won nine seats.^[27] Afterward, the SPS and DS formed a local coalition government with the Sandžak Democratic Party (SDP) and the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS). Petrić was re-elected to the assembly as a SPS candidate and supported the administration.^[28] In early 2012, he strongly criticized a New Serbia (NS) representative who indicated a dislike for "cities with mosques" during an assembly debate; Petrić said that citizens would be shocked by the comment.^[29]

Petrić did not seek re-election in the 2012 Serbian local elections.