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.

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.

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.

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.

[6] After the election, the DOS formed a new administration under the leadership of Democratic Party (Demokratska stranka, DS) leader Zoran Đinđić.

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.

[9][10] 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.

[11] 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.

He also stated that Serbia could resolve the status of Kosovo by military means if it so chose, provided the international community did not interfere, although he added, "that is not the option we choose."

[14] In an early 2005 interview, former Zoran Đinđić aide Vladimir Popović charged that Vojislav Koštunica was supporting the hardline nationalists who had killed the former prime minister.

"[15] During the 2006 Montenegrin parliamentary election, Šormaz urged the newly formed Serb List alliance to unite with a coalition led by the Socialist People's Party of Montenegro in a bid to defeat Milo Đukanović's administration.

[16] Šormaz received the forty-ninth position on an electoral list led by the DSS and New Serbia in the 2007 parliamentary election and was given a third mandate after the alliance won forty-seven seats.

On one occasion, he accused NATO of ignoring United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244, saying, "They are not doing any work down there [in Kosovo and Metohija]; they are sitting in pubs and bars while Serbs are being killed and their property destroyed.

[21] Šormaz later stated that Serbia wished to become a member of the European Union but would not give up its sovereignty over Kosovo and Metohija as a condition of joining.