Twenty-five years later, some of the main protagonists of that time are still in the state leadership, many of them on the opposite side of the then Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS), which, together with the student Resistance, proposed regime change.
DOS collapsed, Milosevic died, the first democratic prime minister Zoran Djindjic was killed in 2003 in front of the Serbian Government building, the FRY disintegrated, and many people today wonder what is left of the October 5 changes.
Photo: Draško GagovićOctober 5, 2000.
Zoran Djindjic and Vojislav Koštunica
Former President of the FRY, Prime Minister of Serbia and leader of the Democratic Party of Serbia, Vojislav Koštunica, retired from politics in 2014, and since then has completely withdrawn from the public eye..
He was seen on the streets of Belgrade on March 15, 2025, during the largest protest in the history of Serbia, which was called by students in the blockade.
Photo: Draško GagovićVojislav Koštunica
The first democratic prime minister, Zoran Djindjic, along with Koštunica, the most prominent leader of the Democratic Opposition of Serbia and the engine of the rebellion against the regime of Slobodan Milošević, was killed on March 12, 2003, in the courtyard of the Government building.
The political background of the assassination of Prime Minister Djindjic has never been fully clarified.
"Zoran Đinđić did not find himself in history by chance - he made history. The 5th of October 2000 is unimaginable without him. No one can say how long another disastrous regime would have lasted, what consequences it would have caused for the country, including - quite possibly - a civil war. All citizens of Serbia owe Đinđić gratitude for the absence of bloodshed - both those who overthrew the government of Slobodan Milosevic and those who defended it. For both, life has been different since that moment started to get better", Filip Schwarm, editor-in-chief of Vremena, wrote earlier.
However, as he further stated in the text, today's Serbia is certainly not the one from the vision of Zoran Đinđić.
"That vision remains the cornerstone of its development and future. Nobody and nothing can change that."
Factor Nebojsa Covic
Nebojsa Covic entered DOS as the leader of the Democratic Alternative, which he founded in 1997, after he left Milošević's SPS. He was the vice president in the first democratic government elected in January 2001.
He criticized the SPS for not admitting defeat in the local elections in 1996, after which he resigned from the post of mayor of Belgrade and switched sides. He had one of the key roles in the organization of the October 5 coup.
Today, he is not officially in politics.
Until recently, he was the president of the Crvena Zvezda Basketball Club, and he is currently the president of the Serbian Basketball Association.
Vesna Pešić and Čedomir Jovanović
Cedomir Jovanovic, who was a student leader in the 1990s, and later one of Đinđić's closest collaborators, is not active in politics today.
In recent years, he has had debatable outbursts in public.
The LDP leader announced last year that he was returning to politics, noting that he never left it. He has not officially returned.
Nevertheless, he returned to the public spotlight, and his statement from the beginning of April this year, when he appeared on Tanjug TV, told how he prevented the civil war in Serbia on March 15, after which he was interrogated, as he claimed, by the police.
Vesna Pešić, as a representative of the Civic Union of Serbia, was one of the key political actors in the formation and operation of the Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS).
As the leader of the GSS, she participated in negotiations and harmonizing the positions of the opposition parties within the DOS. She was active in the election campaign for the presidential elections on September 24, 2000, supporting the joint candidate of DOS, Vojislav Koštunica.
After the fall of Milošević, the GSS had a relatively minor role within the broad coalition, but Pešić was still present in political life, highlighting the issues of democratization, rule of law and civil liberties.
In 2000, she became a member of the Resistance movement. After the merger of the GSS into the Liberal Democratic Party in 2007, she was appointed as the president of the Political Council of the LDP. In March 2011, she resigned from that position.
He still appears in public today.
Nothing without Velja's excavators
Since 1997, Velimir Ilić has been at the head of New Serbia, which he led with the historian Milan St. during the October 5th changes. I'm running.
The people from Čačan whom he took to Belgrade on October 5, who on the way broke through the police brigades with excavators, then set out to "finish the job".
Ilić's most important responsibilities in various governments related to infrastructure, capital investments, construction and emergency situations, and as coalition partners he chose Vojislav Koštunica, Vuk Drašković, and the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS). He returned to opposition activity in 2017.
Today, he is known in the Čačan region as a large producer of plums, and he was also on the streets of Belgrade on March 15, 2025.
"Eternal" Rasim Ljajić
Among the leaders of the opposition in 2000 was Rasim Ljajic. He entered DOS as the leader of the Sandžak Democratic Party, but in 2008 he founded the Social Democratic Party of Serbia.
He is considered the longest-serving minister in Serbia because he was in the governments managed by DSS, DS and SNS. After the formation of the new government in October 2020, he retired from the executive branch, but is still at the head of the SDPS. He was recently criticized by Aleksandar Vučić, talking about coalition partners in Novi Pazar.
Today, Ljajić is also the president of the Sprot club Partizan.
Photo: Tanjug / Jovana KulaševićRasim Ljajic
Mićunović, Batić, Canak...
Vladan Batić, who was the minister of justice in Djindjic's government, was the president of the Christian Democratic Party of Serbia until his death in 2010.
Dragoljub Micunovic in 2000, he led the Democratic Center, which later collectively joined the Democratic Party, and he became the president of the Political Council of that party. Today, at the age of 95, he is not active in politics.
Nenad Canak was the president of the League of Social Democrats of Vojvodina since its foundation, and after 2000 he was the president of the Assembly of Vojvodina. Until the beginning of 2023, LSV was a coalition partner of the Serbian Progressive Party in the city government of Novi Sad, while it was in the opposition at the provincial level.
In November 2022, Canak decided not to run for president of the party he led for 32 years at the Congress, but it was said that he would remain in the party and would continue to work in the areas of LSV's political activity in which it is estimated that he can make the greatest contribution.
Jožef Kasa led the Union of Vojvodina Hungarians until 2010, and after that he worked as a journalist as the editor of Subotica novini. He passed away in 2016.
Žarko Korac he led the Social Democratic Union and was one of the vice presidents in Djindjic's government. Today, the former SDU, headed by Korać until 2014, has been renamed the Party of the Radical Left.
He is no longer politically active and is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade.
Photo: Tanjug/Dragan KujundžićŽarko Korac
Miodrag Isakov was the leader of the Reformists of Vojvodina, and after the DOS took power, he was the deputy prime minister. Today he is not active in politics.
The former leader of New Democracy, Dušan Mihajlović, was the Minister of Police in the government of Zoran Đinđić and Zoran Živković, simultaneously performing the duties of Deputy Prime Minister, and in 2004 he retired from the position of president of his party.
He is not politically active today.
Goran Svilanović was the president of the Civic Association of Serbia at the time of the Fifth of October, and he currently holds the position of regional manager for Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro in one of the leading companies for engineering, development and management in the field of consulting in the Western Balkans.
He is not politically active today.
In 2000, Dragan Milovanović led the Association of Free and Independent Trade Unions (ASNS), which was part of the winning coalition. In Djindjic's government, he was the Minister of Labor and Employment, and today he is not politically active.
Milošević's people are back in power
Current President of Serbia Aleksandar Vučić he met October 5, 2000 as the Minister of Information in the so-called Government of National Unity.
The current governor of the National Bank of Serbia, Jorgovanka Tabaković, was a minister without portfolio in the government of Mirko Marjanović, while the current vice-president of the Government of Serbia and minister of culture, Maja Gojković, was at that time the vice-president of the Federal Government.
First Deputy Prime Minister Ivica Dacic, then a member of the SPS Executive Board and a federal deputy, was part of the ruling group before the Fifth of October.
Today he is the Minister of Police.
Although he was not among the main actors of the October 5 revolution, Dragan Šutanovac often spoke about it and criticized the current regime.
He later retired from the Democratic Party, of which he had been a member since 1997, and later its president, in 2025 he became the ambassador of Serbia to the United States of America.
He recently stayed in New York at the United Nations General Assembly in the company of the President of Serbia.
The former Otporaš, Marko Đurić, was also against the then regime, and today he is the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Serbia and a close associate of Vučić.
Vojislav Šešelj, convicted in The Hague for war crimes and the leader of the Serbian Radical Party, 25 years later is a regular guest of the pro-regime media, and he now speaks praises of Aleksandar Vučić, who stabbed him in the back with Tomislav Nikolić while he was in prison and founded the SNS.
Nebojša Pavković was the Chief of General Staff of the Yugoslav Army during the time of Milošević. He was in that position on October 5, and later ended up in The Hague.
He recently landed in Belgrade on a Serbian government plane, from where he was transported to the VMA.
In 2009, the Hague Tribunal sentenced him to 22 years in prison, and the prosecution charged him with crimes against humanity and violation of the laws and customs of war.
The indictment against Pavković was unsealed in October 2003, and he surrendered to the Hague Tribunal in 2005.
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After the criminal charges and the claims he made about them in the tabloids, Branko Stamenković and Zagorka Dolovac announce lawsuits against Uglješa Mrdić
The progressive regime continues to put pressure on TOK. After the indictment, Minister of Culture Nikola Selaković announces the end of the "organized criminal group around the renegade Prosecutor's Office for Organized Crime."
Low productivity, dependence on coal, poorly sophisticated exports and mass outflow of labor force remain key obstacles to the economic development of the Western Balkans, according to a new publication by the German Aspen Institute.
An indictment was brought against the Minister of Culture Nikola Selaković, along with three other suspects, on suspicion of abuse of official position and falsification of an official document.
None of us have the right to give up our freedom. It is unacceptable to lose heart. Leaving the last line of defense is unacceptable. Because the barbarian attack on prosecutors and judges is their last attack. Beyond that is the abyss
You should not touch Ćaciland before the holidays. Since there will be no New Year celebrations on the streets in Belgrade, it should be left as an attraction for foreign tourists
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What is happening in the country and the world, what is in the newspapers and how to pass the time?
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