DAVIDOVIC, LJUBOMIR

born Dec. 24 [Dec. 12, old style], 1863, Vlako Polje, Serbia died Feb. 19, 1940, Belgrade twice prime minister (191920, 1924) of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (later called Yugoslavia). Entering the Serbian Parliament in 1901, Davidovic helped found the Independent Radical Party in the same year. He was elected leader of his party in 1912 and served as minister of education (191417) in Nikola Paic's coalition Cabinet and in the first Yugoslav government (1918). As leader of the newly formed Democratic Party (1919), an office he held until his death, he presided over the DemocraticSocialist coalition government (191920). In July 1924 he again became prime minister at the head of a short-lived coalition of Democrats, Slovene Clericals, and Bosnian Muslims, supported by the Croatian Peasant Party. Davidovic believed that a truly democratic government within a centralist constitution would gradually weld Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes into one nation, but his political experiences led him to promote a popular movement advocating a federalist state organization based on Serbian-Croatian-Slovene agreement and a parliamentary constitution. He was one of the leaders of the United Opposition.