Raised in the community, he graduated from the University of Belgrade Faculty of Civil Engineering in 1979, earned a master's degree in 1983, and received a Ph.D. in 1988 with the thesis, "Optimization of reliability of production systems in construction."
[8] In April 1997, Ivković brought forward a legislative package that, among other things, gave legal standing to several housing units that had been illegally constructed in the period up to and including November 1995.
[12] In the same period, he introduced "tax holidays" in a bid to convince construction firms that had left Serbia due to international sanctions during the Yugoslav wars to return to the country.
This occurred against the backdrop of major personnel shifts in the party at the conclusion of the Bosnian War, when Milošević removed a number of figures considered too "hardline" in their views.
The local party organization was divided during this time, with Ivković and incumbent Belgrade mayor Nebojša Čović leading rival factions.
[20] Following the initial reports of the SPS's defeat, he told party officials that "legal possibilities" existed for annulling a number of opposition mandates and giving the Socialists victory in a repeat vote.
Ivković planned for a "counter-protest" rally organized by Milošević's allies to end the controversy, but it instead resulted in increased protests from opponents of the administration.
"[37] In the same period, he called for closer co-operation between Serbia's ministries to maximize the country's resources and re-establish production in factories destroyed by NATO bombing.
[38] In August 1999, following the conclusion of NATO's bombing campaign, Ivković spoke at an event in Serbia called "Diaspora 99" and claimed that the country had produced its own air-to-air missiles.
[43] At one point in the campaign, he took part in a radio debate on B92 with Nebojša Čović, who by this time had left the SPS and joined the Democratic Opposition of Serbia (Demokratska opozicija Srbije, DOS).
[44] When a series of polls taken in early September 2000 showed DOS candidate Vojislav Koštunica leading Slobodan Milošević in the Yugoslavian presidential election, Ivković accused the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of involvement, saying that the organization was seeking to manipulate those undecided voters who "always go along with the strongest.
As in 1996, the state authorities did not initially accept the result and sought to introduce a repeat vote; following large-scale protests, however, the Milošević government was overthrown on 5 October 2000.
In the election for the Chamber of Republics, the DOS won ten seats as against seven for the SPS; Ivković did not receive a mandate and was not included in his party's delegation for the new parliament.
He was also defeated in his bid for re-election to the City Assembly of Belgrade in the concurrent 2000 Serbian local elections, losing to a candidate of the DOS in the downtown municipality of Vračar.
The SPS initially nominated Ivković to continue as minister of science and technology in the new administration, but the DOS objected to his candidacy, with Nebojša Čović accusing him of responsibility for the beating of student protestors in 1996–97.
On 7 March 2001, he said that he had recently visited Miloševič and described the former president as being in good spirits despite reports that he would soon be arrested on suspicion of war crimes.
[52] On 31 March, he played a crucial role in negotiating for Milošević to submit to an arrest warrant, bringing an end to an armed standoff at his mansion.
[53][54][55] When rumours circulated about Milošević's pending extradition to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague in June, Ivković spoke at a protest outside the Yugoslavian parliament building.
[56] According to a report in the British newspaper The Independent, Milošević turned against Ivković the following month, describing him as a "traitor" who knew that his extradition was imminent but did nothing to prevent it.
[57] Ivković acknowledged being in conflict with Milošević's wife Mirjana Marković during this period, although he said in August 2001 that their disagreements had been resolved and denied reports of a broader division in the party.
[64] He rejected the legality of his expulsion and organized a congress of his supporters in June 2002, describing the event as a SPS meeting that would lead to renewal in the party.
[65][66] He was formally chosen as the group's leader at this meeting; he paid tribute to Milošević in his acceptance speech but also called for the SPS to adopt a reformist approach under new leadership.
He ran in the September 2002 Serbian presidential election as the leader of an independent group called "Socialists for Return to the Basics" and was defeated, receiving just over one per cent of the vote.
[70] The DOS government had experienced several splits and defections by this time, and the following month Ivković's group co-operated with the administration on a crucial budgetary vote for the upcoming year.
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.