Nemanja Šarović

Nemanja Šarović ( sr-Cyrl, Немања Шаровић; born 28 December 1974) is a Serbian politician and journalist. He served several terms in the National Assembly as a member of the far-right Serbian Radical Party (SRS). Šarović left the Radicals in July 2020 and is now the leader of the ''Love, Faith, Hope'' (LJVN) political organization. He is also a journalist for KTV Television and is known for his satirical coverage of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) rallies.

Early life and career

Šarović was born in Belgrade, in what was then the Socialist Republic of Serbia in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. He graduated from the University of Belgrade Faculty of Law, apprenticed in law, and worked for two and a half years in Belgrade's first municipal court before entering politics.

Politician

Early years (2000–04)

Šarović led the Radical Party's electoral list for the Belgrade division of Palilula in the 2000 Yugoslavian parliamentary election and was not elected when the SRS won no seats in the division. He also ran for both the Belgrade city assembly and the Stari Grad municipal assembly in the concurrent 2000 Serbian local elections and was defeated at both levels. (This was the last local election cycle in Serbia in which delegates were elected for single-member constituencies. All subsequent cycles have taken place under proportional representation.)

Both the Yugoslavian parliamentary vote and the local elections were overshadowed by the 2000 Yugoslavian presidential election, in which Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) leader Slobodan Milošević fell from power after losing to Vojislav Koštunica of the Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS). Serbia's government fell after the Yugoslavian election, and a new Serbian parliamentary election was called for December 2000. Prior to the vote, Serbia's electoral system was reformed such that the entire country became a single electoral unit and all mandates were assigned to candidates on successful lists at the discretion of the sponsoring parties or coalitions, irrespective of numerical order. Šarović received the eighty-first position on the SRS list and was not assigned a mandate after the list won twenty-three seats. During this period, he served as leader of the Radical Party's municipal board in Stari Grad.

First and second assembly terms (2004–08)

Šarović was given the eighty-fifth position on the Radical Party's list in the 2003 Serbian parliamentary election, in which the party won eighty-two seats. He was not initially included in the party's assembly delegation but received a mandate on 12 February 2004 as the replacement for another member who had resigned. The Radicals won more seats than any other party in the 2003 election but fell short of a majority and ultimately served in opposition. During his first term, Šarović was a member of the legislative committee and the committee on justice and administration.

He led the Radical Party's list in Stari Grad for the 2004 Serbian local elections and was elected when the list won nine out of fifty-six seats. The Democratic Party (DS) won the election, and the Radicals served in opposition at this level as well.

It was reported in 2005 that Šarović had claimed 1.639.088 dinars for travel expenses between Belgrade and Vranje, where he worked as an organizer on behalf of the SRS. In a 2006 interview with the Mexican newspaper ''Reforma'', he said that the Radical Party was not against the principle of Serbia joining the European Union (EU) but would not accept the price of giving up sovereignty over Kosovo. In the same interview, he said that he had been arrested three times since the fall of Slobodan Milošević's government in 2000.

Šarović received the twenty-first position on the Radical Party's list in the 2007 parliamentary election and was included in the party's assembly delegation when the list won eighty-one seats. As in 2003, the Radicals won more seats than any other party, fell short of a majority, and served in opposition. During his second term, Šarović was a member of the committee on foreign affairs, the committee on economic reforms, and the administrative committee.

Third assembly term (2009–12)

Šarović was given the tenth position on the Radical Party's list for the 2008 parliamentary election, in which the party won seventy-eight seats. He also appeared on the SRS lists for Belgrade and Stari Grad in the concurrent local elections. The overall election results were inconclusive at both the republic and city levels, and the Radicals subsequently held negotiations with the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) and the SPS toward forming coalition governments. Šarović was a SRS negotiator for a new city government in Belgrade, and it was rumoured that he would have become city manager had the talks been successful. Ultimately, they were not; the Socialists chose instead to form coalitions at both the republic and city levels with the ''For a European Serbia'' (ZES) alliance led by the DS. The Radicals remained in opposition, and Šarović did not initially take an assembly mandate at any level of government.

In July 2008, Šarović led a protest march in Belgrade's Vozdovac municipality against the arrest of former Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadžić.

The Radical Party experienced a serious split in late 2008, with several members joining the more moderate Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) under the leadership of Tomislav Nikolić and Aleksandar Vučić. Šarović remained with the Radicals and was a vocal critic of the new party. He was given a mandate in the Belgrade city assembly on 16 September 2008 and replaced Vučić as the leader of the SRS assembly group. He also ran to become Vučić's successor as the Radical Party's secretary-general but was defeated by Elena Božić Talijan.

He returned to the national assembly on 28 December 2009, following Božić Talijan's resignation from parliament. In his third term, he served on the assembly committee for Kosovo and Metohija and was part of Serbia's delegation to the Inter-Parliamentary Union assembly.

Following the arrest of former Bosnian Serb military leader Ratko Mladić in 2011, Šarović described the victims of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre as "casualties of war" and that said he believed in Mladić's innocence against charges of war crimes. He was quoted as saying, "Those who died in Srebrenica were only those who did not lower their weapons and continued to fight. War is war and these things happen." During this period, Šarović also served as an adviser to Radical Party leader Vojislav Šešelj, who was then himself facing war crimes charges at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague, Netherlands. On one occasion, the tribunal forbade Šešelj from meeting with Šarović on the grounds that Šešelj was using such meetings to illicitly send out political directives.

Out of parliament (2012–16)

Serbia's electoral system was reformed in 2011, such that all assembly mandates were awarded to candidates on successful lists in numerical order.

Šarović received the fourth position on the Radical Party's list in the 2012 parliamentary election and was promoted to the second position in the 2014 parliamentary election. He also led the SRS's lists for the Belgrade city assembly and the Stari Grad municipal assembly in the 2012 Serbian local elections and appeared second on the party's list in the 2014 Belgrade city assembly election; in both the 2012 and 2014 Belgrade elections, he was the Radical Party's designated candidate for mayor. In all of these elections, the SRS fell below the electoral threshold for assembly representation.

In 2013, Šarović led protests against the negotiations for the Brussels Agreement, which normalized some relations between Belgrade and Priština without addressing the status of Kosovo. In one protest, he accused Serbian president Tomislav Nikolić of treason. After the agreement was finalized, deputy prime minister Aleksandar Vučić remarked that Šarović had sent him several threatening messages from his personal phone.

The ICTY permitted Vojislav Šešelj to return to Serbia for health reasons in 2014 while his trial was still in progress. Šarović subsequently indicated that Šešelj would not return to The Hague voluntarily.

Fourth assembly term (2016–20)

After a four-year absence from the national assembly, the Radicals won twenty-two seats in the 2016 parliamentary election. Šarović, who once again received the second position on the party's list, was elected to a fourth term. After the election, Šarović and Nataša Jovanović represented the Radical Party in ''pro forma'' discussions with president Tomislav Nikolić on the formation of a new government. The results of these talks were a foregone conclusion, as the Progressives and their allies commanded a majority of seats in parliament. The Radical delegation used their consultation session to demand that Nikolić resign, and the meeting was reported to have ended after thirty seconds. Later in 2016, Šarović was convicted of burning a flag of the United States of America and issued a suspended sentence.

In 2018, the ICTY convicted Vojislav Šešelj ''in absentia'' of inciting war crimes with nationalist speeches in 1992. He was issued a ten-year sentence but not required to serve any prison time as he had already spent more than ten years in custody at The Hague. Some parliamentarians called for Šešelj to be expelled from the assembly after his conviction; Šarović argued that there was no legal basis for this demand.

During the 2016–20 parliament, Šarović was a member of the administrative committee and the health and family committee; a deputy member of the committee on constitutional and legislative issues, the committee on the diaspora and Serbs in the region, and the committee on Kosovo and Metohija; a deputy member of Serbia's delegation to the NATO parliamentary assembly (where Serbia has observer status); and a member of the parliamentary friendship groups with China, Greece, Russia, and Venezuela.

Šarović appeared in the seventh position on the SRS's list in the 2020 Serbian parliamentary election, in which the Radicals once again fell below the electoral threshold. He resigned from the party on 16 July 2020, citing fundamental disagreements with Šešelj on both the party's direction and the larger political situation in Serbia. He later accused Šešelj of being insufficiently critical of Serbia's SNS-led government and rejected suggestions that he himself would join the Progressives.

Leader of ''Love, Faith, Hope'' (2020–present)

In September 2020, Šarović launched the ''Love, Faith, Hope'' political movement. He said that the name was chosen to reflect what he described as "universal Christian virtues, which we need as a society, people and state, and from which we as a society have moved away," adding that the movement wanted "a state where the law applies to everyone." He said that he considered Aleksandar Vučić as his movement's main political enemy.

Šarović said in September 2021 that the Taliban's return to power in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of American forces demonstrated that it was "disastrous" for sovereign countries to become aligned with the United States of America. In comparison, he credited Russia with sustaining Bashar al-Assad's government and thereby defeating Islamic State in Syria.

Šarović appeared in the lead position on the electoral list of ''Love, Faith, Hope'' in the 2022 Belgrade city assembly election. The list did not cross the electoral threshold.

In May 2022, Vojislav Šešelj received a summons to appear before the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT; the successor body to the ICTY) to respond to charges concerning the publication of classified information and the names of protected witnesses. The summons also included the names of seven current and former Radical Party officials, including Šarović. Šarović said that he recognized only the laws of Serbia and would not respond to the summons. He was ultimately not included in an indictment issued by the court on 11 August 2023.

In March 2024, he said that he was undecided about the LJVN movement participating in the 2024 Belgrade city assembly election. He ultimately did not participate and called for the smaller opposition movements to withdraw to prevent vote splitting that would only favour the SNS.

Journalist

Since 2023, Šarović has been reporting for the opposition KTV Television station and has become known for his satirical coverage of SNS rallies and his interviews with its members. Šarović has called KTV Zrenjanin "the only free television in Serbia".

On 8 March 2025, while covering a pro-SNS "student" counterprotest organized in response to university blockades and mass protests that had been taking place since the Novi Sad railway station canopy collapse in November 2024, Šarović was detained by Serbian Police for "disturbing public order and peace." He was released the same day. Šarović was detained once again on 14 March.

Šarović and members of a KTV Television team were physically attacked on 12 April 2025, while he was covering an SNS rally outside the National Assembly.

Political positions

Šarović is a right-wing politician. Šarović is against the recognition of Kosovo and has claimed that Alekandar Vučić "did more for independent Kosovo than Hashim Thaçi and lbin Kurti" He is against the accession of Serbia to the European Union and stated that "it would be much better for the citizens of Serbia and for the country to turn away from the European Union and start taking care of our own interests". He opposes NATO and in 2013 participated in the burning of NATO flag in Belgrade.

Personal life

Šarović married Aleksandra Ilić of the New Serbia (NS) party in 2011 and has a son with her. They divorced in 2013, in part due to political differences. He married Katarina Odalović in 2017 and has two children with her.

Electoral record

Local (City of Belgrade)

Local (Municipality of Stari Grad)

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sarovic, Nemanja
1974 births
Living people
Politicians from Belgrade
Members of the National Assembly (Serbia)
Members of the City Assembly of Belgrade
Delegates to the Inter-Parliamentary Union Assembly
Deputy Members of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly
Serbian Radical Party politicians
Serbian journalists
Serbian nationalists