Zoran Krasić (; 11 March 1956 – 12 April 2018) was a Serbian politician. He served several terms in the parliaments of Yugoslavia and Serbia and was Serbia's trade minister from 1998 to 2000. Krasić was a member of the far-right Serbian Radical Party (SRS).
Early life and career Krasić was born in Belgrade, in what was then the People's Republic of Serbia in the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia. He graduated from the University of Niš Faculty of Law and practised law in the city. Krasić moved back to Belgrade during his time in public office.Dušan Bogdanović and Biljana Kovačević Vučo, Institutions Abused: Who Was Who in Serbia, 1987–2000, (Belgrade: Biljana Kovačević Vučo Fund), 2011, p. 75.ZORAN KRASIĆ, Otvoreni Parlament, accessed 15 October 2017.
Politician Krasić ran in the 1990 Serbian parliamentary election as a candidate of the People's Radical Party (NRS) in Niš's second division. He was not successful; the winning candidate was Mile Ilić of the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS). The following year, the People's Radical Party merged with Vojislav Šešelj's Serbian Chetnik Movement to form the Serbian Radical Party, and Krasić joined the new organization. He led the SRS's board in Niš in the 1990s and was a vice-president on its national executive."Radicals accuse Yugoslav president of betraying Serbian interest in Kosovo," British Broadcasting Corporation: Central Europe & Balkans, 30 January 1998 (Source: Beta news agency, Belgrade, in Serbo-Croat 1454 gmt 28 Jan 98).
Member of the Federal Assembly of Yugoslavia (1992–2000) Krasić was elected to the Yugoslavian parliament's Chamber of Citizens in the December 1992 parliamentary election when the Radical Party won two seats in the Niš division.ИЗБОРИ '92: ВЕЋЕ ГРАЂАНА САВЕЗНЕ СКУПШТИНЕ, Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Department of Statistics (1993), pp. 15, 35. The Socialist Party and its Montenegrin allies won the election, and the Radical Party served in opposition. Krasić emerged as a prominent spokesperson for his party in this period."RADICALS WALK OUT OF FEDERAL ASSEMBLY SESSION," British Broadcasting Corporation Monitoring Service: Central Europe & Balkans, 27 October 1994 (Source: Tanjug news agency, Belgrade, in Serbo-Croat 1817 gmt 25 Oct 94). He led the Radical Party's electoral list for the smaller, redistributed Niś constituency in the 1996 Yugoslavian election and was re-elected when the party won a single mandate in the division.Velika Srbija [Radical Party publication], Number 156 (October 1996), p. 3; ИЗБОРИ '96: ВЕЋЕ ГРАЂАНА САВЕЗНЕ СКУПШТИНЕ, Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Department of Statistics (1996), p. 57. The Socialist Party and its Montenegrin allies again won the election, and the SRS initially remained in opposition.
Krasić also ran for the Niš city assembly in the 1996 Serbian local elections, which were held concurrently with the Yugoslavian election, and was the Radical Party's nominee for mayor.Velika Srbija [Radical Party publication], Number 156 (October 1996), p. 3. He was not successful; the party won only one assembly seat, and Krasić was personally defeated.Izbori Za Odbornike Skupština Opština i Gradova u Republici Srbiji, 1996, Bureau of Statistics – Republic of Serbia, pp. 82.Skupština Grada Niša, , City of Niš, accessed 10 December 2021. The Zajedno (English: "Together") coalition won a majority victory in Niš, but the Serbian government, dominated by the Socialist Party, did not initially recognize the result. Krasić took part in opposition protests and said that the Radical Party would work to prevent the functioning of the local assembly."SERBIAN RADICAL PARTY SAYS ELECTIONS IN NIS "ABSOLUTELY IRREGULAR"," British Broadcasting Corporation Monitoring Service: Central Europe & Balkans, 5 November 1996 (Source: Beta news agency, Belgrade, in Serbo-Croat 1632 gmt 3 Nov 96). The controversy over the Niš elections was one of the principal causes of the 1996–1997 protests in Serbia. Ultimately, the Serbian government recognized the victory of Zajedno in January 1997.Robert Thomas, Serbia Under Miloševic: Politics in the 1990s, (London: Hurst & Company), 1999, p. 309.
Serbian cabinet minister (1998–2000) The Radical Party joined the government of Serbia on 24 March 1998 as part of a coalition government led by the Socialist Party, and Krasić was named as trade minister in the cabinet of Serbian prime minister Mirko Marjanović."Serbia government list," Reuters News, 24 March 1998. One month after his appointment, he announced that the government would pursue charges against business leaders who had created "false shortages" and raised their prices following a recent currency devaluation."PRESS DIGEST - Yugoslavia - April 20," Reuters News, 20 April 1998. He later said that his ministry's priority would be to fight against monopolies that had created artificial shortages, introduced price pressures, and imported unneeded raw materials.Beti Bilandzic, "Serbia blames monopolies for market disruptions," Reuters News, 24 June 1998.
After the start of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)'s 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia, Krasić said that earnings and pensions would be equalized due to wartime conditions and 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 try to avoid the use of food coupons."Daily says government to announce wartime social security programme," British Broadcasting Corporation Monitoring Service: Central Europe & Balkans, 23 April 1999 (Source: `Blic' web site, Belgrade, in Serbo-Croat 21 Apr 99). In early May 1999, he announced that Serbia was facing a shortage of gasoline and oil derivatives due to NATO bombing raids on country's oil-refining facilities; he added that the country was 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."L'Otan a détruit des raffineries serbes - ministre du Commerce," Reuters - Les actualités en français, 8 May 1999. These points notwithstanding, he said on 19 May that market supplies of agricultural foodstuffs and related products were generally satisfactory given the conditions of war."Trade minister says market supply satisfactory," British Broadcasting Corporation Monitoring Service: Central Europe & Balkans, 21 May 1999 (Source: Tanjug news agency web site in Serbo-Croat 19 May 99).
The bombing campaign ended in June 1999, and NATO forces entered Kosovo shortly thereafter. The Radical Party threatened to withdraw from government when this occurred; Krasić was quoted as saying, "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."Julijana Mojsilovic, "Right-wing radicals pull out of Serbian govt.," Reuters News, 14 June 1999. Ultimately, 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 price increases in staple goods."Serbian minister promises no increase in price of food," British Broadcasting Corporation Monitoring European - Political, 2 December 1999 (Source: Tanjug news agency, Belgrade, in Serbo-Croat 0754 gmt 2 Dec 99). Bosnian Serb Television subsequently reported in February 2000 that his ministry had unexpectedly blocked food exports from Yugoslavia to the Republika Srpska."Serbian ban on food exports to Bosnian Serbs seen as political," British Broadcasting Corporation Monitoring European - Political, 10 February 2000 (Source: Bosnian Serb Television, Banja Luka, in Serbo-Croat 1830 gmt 9 Feb 00).
SPS leader Slobodan Milošević was defeated in the 2000 Yugoslavian presidential election and subsequently fell from power on 5 October 2000, a watershed moment in Serbian politics. Krasić was defeated in his bid for re-election to the Chamber of Citizens in the concurrent Yugoslavian parliamentary election. (He did not seek re-election in Niš but instead received the second position on the SRS list for the Belgrade division of Čukarica; the Radical Party did not win any seats in the division.)Velika Srbija [Serbian Radical Party publication], Volume 11 Number 901 (September 2000), p. 3.ИЗБОРИ 2000: ВЕЋЕ РЕПУБЛИКА И ВЕЋЕ ГРАЂАНА САВЕЗНЕ СКУПШТИНЕ, Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Department of Statistics (2000), pp. 40, 59. The Serbian government fell after Milošević's defeat in the Yugoslavian vote, and Krasić's ministerial term ended on 24 October 2000.
Member of the National Assembly of Serbia First three terms (2003–08) Serbia held a new parliamentary election in December 2000. For this vote, the entire country was for the first time counted as a single electoral division. Krasić received the twenty-fourth position on the Radical Party's list; the party won twenty-three seats, and he was not initially included in its assembly delegation.Избори за народне посланике Народне скупштине одржани 23. децембра 2000. године и 10. јануара 2001. године – ИЗБОРНЕ ЛИСТЕ (1 Српска радикална странка – др Војислав Шешељ), , Republic Election Commission, Republic of Serbia, accessed 7 April 2024. (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 assigned out of numerical order. Krasić could have been given a seat when the new assembly convened in January 2001 despite his list position, though in the event he was not.)Serbia's Law on the Election of Representatives (2000) stipulated that parliamentary mandates would be awarded to electoral lists (Article 80) that crossed the electoral threshold (Article 81), that mandates would be given to candidates appearing on the relevant lists (Article 83), and that the submitters of the lists were responsible for selecting their parliamentary delegations within ten days of the final results being published (Article 84). See Law on the Election of Representatives, Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia, No. 35/2000, made available via LegislationOnline, , accessed 6 June 2021. He was, however, awarded a mandate on 18 March 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 (ICTY) in The Hague.PRVA SEDNICA, PRVOG REDOVNOG ZASEDANJA, 18.03.2003, Otvoreni Parlament, accessed 16 October 2017."Serbian party leader Seselj confirms receiving Hague tribunal indictment," British Broadcasting Corporation Monitoring Newsfile, 20 February 2003. The Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS) won a landslide victory in the 2000 election, and the Radicals served in opposition.
Krasić appeared in the thirty-eighth position on the Radical Party's list in the 2003 parliamentary election and was included in its delegation when the list won eighty-two seats.Избори за народне посланике Народне скупштине одржани 28. децембра 2003. године – ИЗБОРНЕ ЛИСТЕ (2. СРПСКА РАДИКАЛНА СТРАНКА - др ВОЈИСЛАВ ШЕШЕЉ), , Republic Election Commission, Republic of Serbia, accessed 7 April 2024.27 January 2004 legislature, National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia, accessed 3 August 2017. Although the Radicals were the largest party in the new assembly, they fell well short of a majority and ultimately continued to serve in opposition. In his second term, Krasić was deputy chair of the assembly's legislative committee and a member of the committee on constitutional affairs and the committee on justice and administration.ДЕТАЉИ О НАРОДНОМ ПОСЛАНИКУ: КРАСИЋ, ЗОРАН, , National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia, accessed 7 December 2021.