section_path: Party president
section_name: Party president
paragraph_text: Party president
  
  In 1999, he joined the Social Democratic Party (SDP) as he had not yet been an official member. Following SDP's win in the 2000 elections, he was given responsibility for liaison with NATO; three years later he became assistant to Foreign Minister Tonino Picula. He left his post after the 2003 elections when the conservative Croatian Democratic Union came to power. As an SDP member, in 2004 he renounced his position as an assistant minister of foreign affairs and became a member of the newly founded SDP's executive committee as well as the International Secretary in charge of contacts with other political parties. Two years later, he briefly became party spokesman, standing in for absent Gordana Grbić. In early September 2006 he became SDP's coordinator for the 4th constituency in the 2007 elections.
  
  An extraordinary party convention was held in Zagreb on 2 June 2007, due to 11 April resignation of the first party president and Croatia's former prime minister Ivica Račan. Milanović entered the contest, despite being considered an "outsider", because of his shorter term in the party, running against Željka Antunović (acting party president since Račan's resignation), Milan Bandić and Tonino Picula. On 29 September 2007, during the campaign for party president, he publicly promised to resign and never to seek presidency of the party again, if the party did not win more seats than HDZ in next elections. In the first round he led with 592, well ahead of his nearest rival, Željka Antunović. He won the second round, thereby becoming president of the party.