Andrija Mandić decided to enter political life during his mid-twenties with the introduction of multi-party system in 1990 by joining the Union of Reform Forces of Yugoslavia. In the mid-1990s Andrija Mandic decided to return to political life and joined the People's Party, which claimed restoration of the old political party, the very first Montenegrin one, in the old Montenegrin monarchy. In 1997 he became one of the founders of the Serb People's Party of Montenegro, when numerous members of the People's Party of Montenegro defected from the political party, disagreeing with the party's Novak Kilibarda leadership's decision to form a coalition with the ruling Milo Đukanović's Democratic Party of Socialists of Montenegro. SNS CG considered that NS CG abandoned the national original aims of the party. During the 2006 Montenegrin independence referendum, Mandić called for minorities to be banned from voting. After the referendum ended in favor of independence at first he refused to accept the referendum and declared that Albanians should never have been allowed to vote. In 2008 Andrija Mandic became the first president of Serb List transformed into party - New Serb Democracy. Mandić sought to transform the Serb List coalition into a more civic-oriented party, in order to boost the party's coalition potential, and even the dropping the "Serb" prefix from the newly formed party's name was considered. This idea was met with strong resistance during the merger talks. In 2009 parliamentary election NOVA ran independently and won 9,2% of the votes, and 8 seats. In the next parliamentary election held in 2012, the party ran within the Democratic Front coalition which was second ranked electoral list with 22,8% of the votes and 20 seats, out of which NOVA won 8.
Criminal prosecution
On 15 February 2017, Andrija Mandić was stripped of his parliamentary immunity in connection with an ongoing criminal prosecution against him. On 8 June 2017, the High Court in Podgorica confirmed the indictment of Andrija Mandić, along with thirteen other persons, including two Russian nationals and Milan Knežević, on charges that included "preparing a conspiracy against the constitutional order and the security of Montenegro" and an "attempted terrorist act."
