Života Starčević

Starčević entered politics as a member of the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS). He appeared in the 202nd position (out of 250) on a combined electoral list of the DSS and New Serbia (NS) in the 2008 Serbian parliamentary election.[2] The list won thirty seats, and he was not included in his party's assembly delegation. (From 2000 to 2011, Serbian parliamentary mandates were awarded to sponsoring parties or coalitions rather than to individual candidates, and it was common practice for the mandates to be assigned out of numerical order. Starčević could have been given a seat in the assembly despite his low position on the list, but he was not.)[3] He also appeared on the DSS's list for Jagodina in the concurrent 2008 Serbian local elections and was elected to the city assembly when the list won two seats.[4] Jagodina is United Serbia's main area of support, and a local JS-led coalition won a majority victory in 2008.[5]

Serbia's electoral system was reformed in 2011, such that all parliamentary mandates were awarded to candidates on successful lists in numerical order. Starčević received the sixty-first position on the DSS list for the 2012 parliamentary election and was not elected when the list won twenty-one seats.[6] He was re-elected to the Jagodina assembly in the 2012 local elections, seemingly after appearing in the lead position on the DSS list.[7] The JS's coalition again won a majority victory in the city.[8] Starčević was vice-president of the DSS's executive board at the republic level in this period.[9]

Starčević was promoted to the thirty-fifth position on the DSS's list in the 2014 parliamentary election.[10] The list did not cross the electoral threshold for assembly representation. He resigned from the DSS to join United Serbia in October 2014, citing Vojislav Koštunica's departure as DSS leader and the party's poor strategy in recent elections.[11]

Since 2008, United Serbia has contested Serbian parliamentary elections as part of a coalition led by the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS). Starčević was given the ninety-first position on the SPS-led list in the 2016 parliamentary election and was not elected when the list won twenty-nine seats.[12] He also appeared in the eighth position on a JS–SPS list in Jagodina for the 2016 local elections and was re-elected when the list won twenty-one out of thirty-one seats.[13][14]

Starčević was promoted to the seventh position on the SPS–JS list in the 2020 parliamentary election and was elected when the list won thirty-two seats.[15] He served as deputy leader of the JS parliamentary group, which provided outside support to Serbia's administration led by the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS). In his first term, he was a member of the committee on education, science, technological development, and the information society; a member of the subcommittee on the information society and digitalisation; a deputy member of the foreign affairs committee and the committee on administrative, budgetary, mandate, and immunity issues; the head of Serbia's parliamentary friendship groups with Eritrea and the Netherlands; and a member of the friendship groups with Austria, Egypt, Greece, Italy, North Korea, Russia, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America.[16]

He was re-elected in the 2022 parliamentary election after again receiving the seventh position on the SPS–JS list, which won thirty-one seats.[17] He continues to serve as deputy leader of the JS group and is deputy president of the administrative committee; a member of the committee on the economy, regional development, trade, tourism, and energy; a member of the European Union–Serbia stabilization and association committee; and a member of the friendship groups with Austria, Belarus, Brazil, Bulgaria, China, Cuba, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Italy, Nepal, North Macedonia, Palestine, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States of America.[18]

In June 2023, Starčević demanded that Rade Basta be dismissed from the Serbian government after Basta, a JS member, called for sanctions against Russia in defiance of the party's views.[19] Basta was indeed removed from office shortly thereafter.

Starčević again appeared in the eighth position on the JS-led list for Jagodina in the 2020 local elections and was elected to a fourth term when the list won seventeen out of twenty-one seats.[20][21] He continues to serve in the city assembly.[22]