Nebojša Bakarec
Nebojša Bakarec () is a Serbian politician. He has been active for many years in the city politics of Belgrade and is currently serving his second term in the National Assembly of Serbia. At one time a prominent member of the Democratic Party of Serbia (Demokratska stranka Srbije, DSS), he is now a member of the Serbian Progressive Party (Srpska napredna stranka, SNS). Early life and private career Bakarec was born in Osijek, in what was then the Socialist Republic of Croatia in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. He later moved to Belgrade. He is also known for having several tattoos and has written a number of songs. Bakarec has written articles for Informer, a tabloid newspaper in Serbia. Political career Bakarec became a member of the Democratic Party (Demokratska stranka, DS) when multi-party democracy was reintroduced to Serbia in 1990. When the DS split in 1992, he joined the breakaway Democratic Party of Serbia. Democratic Party of Serbia In 2000, the DSS participated in the Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS), a broad coalition of parties opposed to Slobodan Milošević's administration. Bakarec was a spokesperson for the DOS in the 2000 Yugoslavian general election and the subsequent 2000 Serbian parliamentary election. He became president of the executive board in the Belgrade municipality of Stari Grad following the 2000 Serbian local elections and held this position until 2004. The DSS left the DOS in 2002; in that year, Bakarec was a spokesperson for DSS leader Vojislav Koštunica in his bids to become president of Serbia in the September–October and December elections. Bakarec received the sixty-seventh position on the DSS's electoral list in the 2003 Serbian parliamentary election. The party won fifty-three seats. He was not initially chosen as part of the DSS's parliamentary delegation, but he received a mandate on 12 February 2004 as the replacement for another member. (From 2000 to 2011, mandates were awarded to successful parties and coalitions rather than individual candidates, and it was common practice for the mandates to be distributed out of numerical order. Bakarec's position on the DSS list had no bearing on whether or when he received a mandate.) His first term in the assembly was in any event brief; he resigned on 16 March 2004. He appeared in the lead position on the DSS's list for the Stari Grad municipal assembly in the 2004 Serbian local elections and received another mandate after the list won eleven seats. He subsequently became deputy president (i.e., deputy mayor) of the municipality and served in this role until 2008. Bakarec was given a mandate for the Assembly of the City of Belgrade after receiving the twenty-third position on a combined DSS–New Serbia list in the 2008 Serbian local elections. The results of this election were initially inconclusive, and discussions took place between the DSS, the Serbian Radical Party, and the Socialist Party of Serbia about forming a coalition government. These talks were unsuccessful; a new city government was formed by the DS and the Socialist