[3] Bakarec became a member of the Democratic Party (Demokratska stranka, DS) when multi-party democracy was reintroduced to Serbia in 1990.

In 2000, the DSS participated in the Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS), a broad coalition of parties opposed to Slobodan Milošević's administration.

He became president of the executive board in the Belgrade municipality of Stari Grad following the 2000 Serbian local elections and held this position until 2004.

[11] Bakarec was given a mandate for the Assembly of the City of Belgrade after receiving the twenty-third position on a combined DSS–New Serbia list in the 2008 Serbian local elections.

These talks were unsuccessful; a new city government was formed by the DS and the Socialist Party, and the DSS served in opposition.

Bakarec also appeared again in the lead position on the DSS's list for the Stari Grad municipal assembly[14] and received another term in that body.

The following year, he was convicted by the First Basic Court in Belgrade of hate speech and of severe discrimination against LBGT people on the basis of this statement.

He is now a member of the assembly committee on administrative, budgetary, mandate, and immunity issues; a member of the committee on human and minority rights and gender equality; a deputy member of the committee on Kosovo-Metohija and the culture and information committee; the leader of Serbia's parliamentary friendship group with Nauru; and a member of the parliamentary friendship groups with the Bahamas, Botswana, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Comoros, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Grenada, Guinea-Bissau, Jamaica, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Liberia, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritius, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Poland, the Republic of Congo, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Sao Tome, the Solomon Islands, South Sudan, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Suriname, Togo, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay, and Uzbekistan.