Dragan Šormaz () is a Serbian politician who served in the National Assembly of Serbia on an almost continuous basis from 2001 to 2022. At one time a leading member of the Democratic Party of Serbia (Demokratska stranka Srbije, DSS), he later joined the Serbian Progressive Party (Srpska napredna stranka, SNS) and was its member from 2010 to 2023.
Early life, career, and private life
Šormaz was born in Drvar, in what was then the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. His father was a judge and his family moved frequently in his youth; he lived at different times in Lebane, Negotin, Velika Plana, and Požarevac. He now lives in Smederevo and has a background in labour relations.
Šormaz is a huge fan of hard rock and heavy metal. According to an article in Danas, he once told his colleagues of his disappointment at having to attend a political meeting while Metallica and Def Leppard were playing in Sofia, Bulgaria.
Political career
Democratic Party of Serbia
Šormaz joined the DSS on its formation in 1992. He was an opponent of Slobodan Milošević's administration throughout the 1990s and led the DSS municipal committee in Smederevo in 2000; in an interview from this period, he said that police had threatened members of his party with arrest if they took part in an anti-Milošević protest. Milošević was defeated by DSS leader Vojislav Koštunica in the September 2000 Yugoslavian presidential election, an event that precipitated a large-scale change in Yugoslavian and Serbian politics.
The DSS contested the subsequent 2000 Serbian parliamentary election as part of the Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS), a broad and ideologically diverse coalition of parties that had opposed Milošević's regime. Šormaz received the sixty-first position on the DOS's electoral list and was awarded a mandate after the list won a landslide victory with 176 out of 250 seats. (From 2000 to 2011, parliamentary mandates were awarded to sponsoring parties or coalitions rather than to individual candidates, and the mandates were often awarded out of numerical order. Šormaz did not automatically receive a mandate by virtue of his position on the list.) He took his seat when the assembly met in early 2001. After the election, the DOS formed a new administration under the leadership of Democratic Party (Demokratska stranka, DS) leader Zoran Đinđić. In 2002, the DSS left the DOS and moved to the opposition, emerging as prominent rivals of the DS. The parliamentary mandates of several DSS members, including Šormaz, were nullified at the discretion of the DOS on 12 June 2002, although this decision was subsequently revoked and the mandates restored.
The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was officially reconstituted as the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro in February 2003, and the Assembly of Serbia and Montenegro was established as its legislative branch. The first members of this body were chosen by indirect election from the republican parliaments of Serbia and Montenegro, with each parliamentary group allowed representation proportional to its numbers. Only sitting members of the Serbian assembly or the Montenegrin assembly, or members of the Federal Assembly of Yugoslavia at the time of the country's reconstitution, were eligible to serve. The DSS was permitted seventeen members in the federal assembly, and Šormaz was included in the party's delegation. He served in this role until a new federal assembly delegation was selected in early 2004; he also continued to serve in the National Assembly during this time.
Đinđić was assassinated in early 2003, an event that ultimately led to further divisions in the DOS and a new parliamentary election in December of the same year. Šormaz received the thirty-sixth position on the DSS's list and was awarded a mandate when the list won fifty-three seats. The DSS emerged as the leading party in a new coalition government formed after this election, and Vojislav Koštunica was selected as Serbia's new prime minister. Šormaz served as a member of the assembly's defence and security committee in the parliament that followed. In March 2004, he criticized Dušan Mihajlović, the minister of internal affairs in the previous government, for restructuring the ministry and appointing allies to key positions just before the DSS-led coalition took power. Šormaz was part of Dragan Maršićanin's campaign headquarters in the 2004 Serbian presidential election.