Broz was born in Belgrade, then part of the People's Republic of Serbia in the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia. He is the eldest son of Tito's son Žarko Broz and Tamara Veger, a Russian. He has a degree from the Belgrade University Faculty of Forest Management, and at different times worked at military game preserves and as a forester, metal worker, and policeman in charge of security for his grandfather. Although he was in frequent contact with Tito, he was not raised in affluent conditions and did not become wealthy by inheritance; a 2002 newspaper profile described him as living in a small, dilapidated house in Belgrade's Dedinje area and working as a cook in Zemun. "I am not sorry because the family has nothing," he was quoted as saying. "My grandpa raised me to be a modest man, not different from ordinary people." He added that his modesty helped him to survive the tragedies that befell Serbia and Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Broz has consistently defended Tito's political legacy and rejected charges that his grandfather was a dictator. At a memorial ceremony for Tito in 2000, he told an interviewer that his grandfather had permitted the 1968 student demonstrations in Yugoslavia to take place and addressed the issues behind the protests by political means. During the same interview, he remarked that Tito confided to him in 1978 that his greatest mistake was allowing nationalists in Yugoslavia to present their beliefs for public discussion. Broz later welcomed the founding of the "Republic of Titoslavia" in Rakovica, Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2005; he was quoted as saying, "This does not reflect some fashion trend or nostalgic feelings about Tito's state, which has been and forever gone. This reflects nostalgia about the time when we all lived well, when we all, generally, lived happy and dignified lives. Today, we are nobody and nothing." In 2010, he said that the Tito years were “a time of safety and security; a working father could support a whole family, education and healthcare was free for all Yugoslavia had a good reputation around the globe.”
Political career
Broz first intended to seek election to the National Assembly of Serbia in the 2003 parliamentary election at the head of a coalition of four minor left-wing parties. He used Tito's image and the motto, "Where I stopped, you continue," in the campaign. He subsequently withdrew from the contest, however, and did not appear on the candidate list of any party or alliance. On 23 November 2009, Broz was elected as the leader of Serbia's newly formed Communist Party, created via a merger of his own political support base with Novi Sad's Union of Social Democrats and Zrenjanin's New Communist Party. In an interview with Danas, Broz said that the new party would try to reconnect all of the former Yugoslav republics on social and economic issues; he added that he accepted the need for greater integration with the European Union but that only Russia could be a strategic partner for Serbia. The party was officially registered in December 2010. In 2011, the Jamahiriya News Agency reported that Broz sent a cable of condolence to Muammar Gaddafi, his family, and the Libyan people following the death of Saif al-Arab Gaddafi in a North Atlantic Treaty Organization bomb strike in the 2011 military intervention in Libya. According to the report, Broz described the attack as a criminal act. Broz led the Communist Party's electoral list of sixty candidates in the 2012 Serbian parliamentary election. The party received 28,977 votes, well below the five per cent threshold needed to enter the assembly. For the 2014 parliamentary election, Broz formed an alliance with the small Montenegrin Party and appeared in the second position on its electoral list. This list also failed to win any mandates. Broz contested the 2016 parliamentary election on an electoral list led by the Socialist Party of Serbia, appearing in the twenty-eighth position. The list won twenty-nine mandates, and Broz was elected to the assembly. Although still the leader of the Communist Party, he serves as part of the Socialist Party's parliamentary group. The Socialist Party is a part of Serbia's coalition government, and Broz accordingly serves as part of the government's parliamentary majority. He is a member of the parliamentary committee on labour, social issues, social inclusion, and poverty reduction; a deputy member of the environmental protection committee; and a member of the parliamentary friendship groups with Algeria, Belarus, China, Cuba, Greece, Iran, Palestine, Russia, Ukraine, Venezuela, Syria, and the countries of Sub-Saharan Africa.
