In 1990, after the electoral defeat of the government of the Socialist Republic of Croatia by the Croatian Democratic Union (, HDZ), ethnic tensions between Croats and Croatian Serbs worsened. The Yugoslav People's Army ( – JNA) believed that Croatia would use the Croatian Territorial Defence Force's ( – TO) equipment to build its own army and confront the JNA. To minimize the expected resistance, the JNA confiscated the TO's weapons. On 17 August tensions escalated into an open revolt by the Croatian Serbs, centred on the predominantly Serb-populated areas of the Dalmatian hinterland near the southern town of Knin, parts of the Lika, Kordun and Banovina regions and eastern Croatia. They established a Serbian National Council in July 1990 to coordinate opposition to Croatian President Franjo Tuđman's policy of pursuing independence for Croatia. Milan Babić, a dentist from Knin, was elected president and Knin police chief Milan Martić established paramilitary militias. The two men eventually became the political and military leaders of the SAO Krajina, a self-declared state incorporating the Serb-inhabited areas of Croatia.