Zoran Đinđić, the leader of the Democratic Party, was designated as prime minister and given the task of forming Serbia's first freely elected post-communist and post-Milošević Government. The Government was sworn in on 25 January 2001 and its term officially ended on March 3, 2004, when the new government under PM Vojislav Koštunica was unveiled following the 2003 Serbian parliamentary election held in late December.
When PM Zoran Đinđić was assassinated on March 12, 2003, Nebojša Čović (one of the five deputy PMs at the time) became the acting PM for four days until Zoran Živković got named as the new prime minister on March 16, 2003.
After Đinđić's assassination, the government also went through a slight reconfiguration as Čedomir Jovanović, up to that point DOS' parliamentary club chief, became deputy PM.
(The post of Deputy Minister has since 2004 been abolished and a new post of State Secretary (državni sekretar) has been instituted (of which there are several in each Ministry).