Milan Bandić

Mayor of Zagreb

Upon becoming mayor of Zagreb in 2000, Bandić continued his predecessor and the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) government's pattern of deregulation and abandonment of urban planning that began in the 1990s. Bandić's mayoralty was characterised by unsustainable projects creating unplanned investment-driven sprawl and causing overbuilding. The inconsistency and non-specificity of the general urban master plans of 2003 and 2007 allowed the private sector to take over the role of urban planning from professionals. The master plan was frequently altered to accord with private investors' interests, while citizens and urban planners had minimal participation in the projects. As a consequence, it failed to achieve its objections, and urban renewal in Zagreb was characteristic of the so-called era of the bulldozer: a discarded approach involving construction of unsustainable luxury housing on the site of former undesirable neighbourhoods and areas. The city continued an ongoing trend of losing vegetation, replacing a significant fraction of its green spaces with pavement and buildings. Bandić's administration was highly centralised, as he directly involved himself in all matters that concerned running the city. The 1999 city statute created two levels of self-government: 17 arbitrarily drawn city districts which were divided into local committees. In practice, district councils were bogged down in bureaucracy and had no effect beyond enacting plans for "small community actions", while forming of local committees only began in 2008. During the Great Recession, the city cut the funding for small community actions, effectively stopping self-governmental activity. Bandić's mayoralty reduced citizen participation to a formality, using manipulation and confrontation to marginalise citizens who disagreed with their initiatives. Bandić often confronted disagreeing citizens and participated in publicity stunts.

The master plan removed a long-standing moratorium on construction of buildings over nine storeys in height. Together with lack of precision in detailed spatial plans, which were in fact abrogated for many city project areas in the 2006 plan, this state of affairs allowed new structures to arbitrarily affect the city's skyline. High-rise office towers in urban areas and dense housing projects in previously suburban areas, such as Lanište and Borovje, were built without improvements to infrastructure and corresponding amenities, causing traffic jams and overburdening of schools, hospitals and other amenities. New apartment buildings lagged behind late Communist-era housing in construction standards and amenities. In one case, poor construction standards at a building site led to the creation of a sinkhole which swallowed up one whole side of Kupska Street in Trnje.

Flower Square affair

Bandić established himself as the person in charge of all aspects of running Zagreb, becoming a spokesman for several controversial projects, one of which was the construction of a shopping mall on a historic Donji grad square. In 2006, real estate developer Tomislav Horvatinčić, who had made use of Bandić's new urban master plan to build the 17-storey HOTO Tower in 2004, presented a plan for "Life Style Center" (later to become Centar Cvjetni, "Flower Centre"), a 50,000 m2 (540,000 ft2) mall with a 700-car underground parking garage in Zagreb's pedestrian zone, on the Petar Preradović Square, popularly known as Flower Square (Cvjetni trg). The project involved tearing down former home of Zagreb's most famous architect Hermann Bollé, the birth house of poet Vladimir Vidrić, and the Cinema Zagreb. It was opposed by the NGOs Green Action and Right to the City, as well as numerous public figures. The Serbian Orthodox Church also opposed the project, laying claim to Cinema Zagreb, which had been expropriated from the church by the post-WWII Communist government. A petition to stop the project was run, collecting over 54,000 signatures.

After initially denying the existence of the shopping mall project, Bandić supported Horvatinčić's efforts by modifying the general urban master plan. Horvatinčić attracted controversy by calling the buildings "rat holes"; the invective was picked up by the Bandić administration. In one case in 2007, Bandić publicly cursed out the protesters, singling out Right to the City leader Teodor Celakoski. Protests and lawsuits filed by the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Spatial Planning delayed and reduced the scope of the project, which at one point involved remodelling the entire city block, but ultimately failed to stop it, in large part thanks to Bandić's involvement. Notably, police cracked down on a protest in February 2010 opposing the conversion of part of Varšavska Street pedestrian zone to parking garage ramp, arresting its leaders, including Green Action president and future Mayor of Zagreb Tomislav Tomašević and actress Urša Raukar. The ramp was finished in 2011, completing the project. Further expansions of the shopping mall were prevented by a 2013 amendment to the general urban master plan. A related controversy arose temporarily in 2016, as Bandić administration allowed Horvatinčić to place a bar patio in front of the entrance to the Flower Square's Serbian Orthodox Cathedral, also hindering access to a public seating area. Bandić withdrew the permit after public pressure.

Bandić's other projects at Flower Square included an unexecuted project for canopy and floor heating in the adjoining Bogovićeva and Petrićeva Streets and closing down Cinema Europa, the home of Zagreb Film Festival, despite public protests. Bandić described the closure of the cinema as "stealing [Cinema Europa] away from tycoon privatisation." Much of Flower Square today is covered by coffee bar patios, and few flower stands remain.

Zagreb Housing Development Model

At the end of the 1990s, the Croatian government began a programme of social housing called Subsidised Housing Development Programme (Program društveno poticane stanogradnje, POS), creating private-public partnerships to develop housing estates accessible to low-income residents. One POS housing estate was built in Zagreb: Špansko–Oranice, whose construction began during the mayoralty of Vlasta Pavić. Soon after Bandić's return to power in 2005, his administration bought out the government's POS projects in Zagreb, Bandić terming the city-led projects the "Zagreb housing development model" (Zagrebački model stanogradnje). Despite Bandić prominently leading social housing projects for low-income residents, few such projects eventually panned out. At the same time, a glut of higher-priced housing was created. It was estimated that only half of all new flats built privately between 2001 and 2008 had been sold by 2013.

According to urban planners, City of Zagreb's private-public partnership model was a "complete failure". Despite the fact that POS estates residents were highly content with their new housing, in large part owing to the exceedingly low quality and availability of existing affordable housing and high demand for cheap flats, only three out of nine POS estates: Špansko–Oranice, Sopnica–Jelkovec and Vrbani III were built by 2015, while the construction in a fourth one, Podbrežje, finally began in 2016, but the plan was later amended and only a few buildings were constructed by 2021. 2014 research showed that only 6.1 percent of Zagreb's residents lived in POS housing, a far lower share than in social housing projects of other European capitals. The new estates were also criticised for high flat prices rivalling those in a cheap gated community in Sveta Nedelja, Zagreb County.

The plan for Sopnica–Jelkovec estate (later renamed Novi Jelkovec) was laid out in 2003 and amended several times. The location was set in the Sesvete industrial zone, on the site of the former Sljeme pig factory, whose grounds the city purchased in 1999. The project would create a new neighbourhood on a 39.5-hectare (98-acre) area that was to be connected to the city by an extension of Vukovar Street and a new tram line, with numerous amenities such as a library, a kindergarten and a community swimming pool. Bandić associated himself publicly with the project after taking it over from the POS programme. The City of Zagreb invested 2.5 billion kuna (€300 million) into the project, whose construction began in 2006. In 2009, at the opening of the estate, Bandić announced that "we almost solved the housing problems of most of [Zagreb's] residents [who could not afford a flat]." In the next several years, the estate attained a negative reputation as none of the promised facilities and traffic connections materialised. Many of the residents were assigned flats lacking basic amenities such as internet and phone service. Bus lines were added to the neighbourhood only in 2013. An additional problem was poor construction causing water leaks. Bandić took a leading role in the allocation of flats, where inhabitants of the same social status were largely accorded flats in the same buildings, creating segregation and stunting social cohesion. Most of the problems were eventually remedied and the residents expressed satisfaction with the estate in a survey five years after its opening, but it could not shake off its initial negative reputation, leading to significant vacancy rates years after it was constructed. In 2020, the remaining apartments were offered at reduced rent rates to the Zagreb earthquake victims.

Transport infrastructure

Bandić frequently talked about the state of transport infrastructure in Zagreb, regularly announcing numerous capital infrastructure projects, which would allegedly remedy traffic problems in Zagreb. Some of these were urban motorways through densely populated Medvednica Foothills, a tunnel under the Medvednica that would connect Zagreb with Zagorje various tunnels and underpasses in the historic city centre, extensions of numerous arterial roads, such as Branimir Road and Prisavlje and building several new bridges over Sava near Jarun and Bundek.

A few projects were carried out: widening part of Ljubljana Avenue (which Bandić subsequently in a populist move renamed Zagreb Avenue), Radnička Road and Jankomir Bridge, and constructing Homeland Bridge and overpasses or underpasses at several high traffic junctions such as Remetinec Roundabout. A few new stretches of arterial roads were built, including filling a one-kilometre gap in Branimir Road, which took place from 2005 to 2016. Many projects were criticised for the poor quality of execution, such as an underpass which continued to flood regularly during rainfall despite specific repairs to that end, and the inconsistently marked cycling paths.

In 2016, the city renovated the pedestrian Sava Bridge, and in 2018 began works to renovate Liberty Bridge. In 2019, Sava Bridge was closed after a part of the pavement fell through onto the embankment below. Bandić said the bridge was safe and would be repaired within days. However, the failed pavement remained closed to traffic until the end of Bandić's mayoralty, at which time it was scheduled to be opened in 2022. After finishing the Liberty Bridge renovation in December 2019, the city began the renovation of Youth Bridge; this was also Bandić's last announcement of imminent works on his perennial Jarun Bridge project. The Liberty Bridge renovation was criticised by the Ministry of Construction and Spatial Planning for only renovating asphalt and railings instead of carrying out repairs to the dangerously corroded bridge structure.

Most of Bandić's involvements in transport infrastructure concerned car traffic. For instance, while the cycling infrastructure was expanded, it was still fragmentary and cycling rate lagged behind other European capitals, despite Zagreb having one of the smallest shares of car traffic in the commute modal split. Although Bandić announced numerous new lines in the core of Zagreb's public transport, its tram network, his administration did not realise any of these projects, leading to an unprecedented 20-year drought in tram line construction. In 2000, Bandić opened two new tram lines, Dubrava–Dubec and Jarun–Prečko, construction of which was finished during the previous mayor's term. These remained the last new tram tracks in the city. The Prečko turning circle remains marred by a property dispute, which at one point occasioned a temporary closure. In 2007, the city announced construction of seven new tram lines "over the next few years", including lines in Trešnjevka, Lanište, Dubrava, and the never realised Jarun Bridge, two different lines to Zagreb Airport, as well as proposals for further tram lines in Trnje and on the never built Vatikanska Street extension. Bandić would announce construction on many of these lines again until the end of his mayoralty. Further tram lines and other projects, such as reconstructing the tram storage yard or an intermodal terminal at Sava Bridge, were announced, but no such plans came to fruition by the end of the mayoralty. When one of the perennial airport tram projects was brought up by news media in 2019, Bandić denied he proposed it. On multiple occasions since the mid-2000s, Bandić had presented plans for a subway network; in 2014, the plan involved a 17-kilometre (11 mi) light rail line to be finished by 2017. Subway plans were revived after the 2020 earthquake, "so that trams would not cause vibrations [in the apartments]" of the residents in damaged city centre buildings, per Bandić.

City finances

Bandić's mayoralty saw Zagreb's city budget increase from 3.8 billion Croatian kuna in 1998 to 13.7 billion kuna in 2021. During his mayoralty, Bandić controlled the allocation of around 177 billion kuna (€24 billion) in budgets.

On 1 January 2007, Bandić founded the Zagreb Holding, placing city companies under a single corporate umbrella, of which he maintained full control as the sole board member until a 2009 intervention by the Ministry of Public Administration. The holding took up some of the city's responsibilities, such as building schools and kindergartens, and sold and leased back city's property, such as trams, to finance projects. In 2007, the company issued €300 million in bonds on the London Stock Exchange, purportedly to finance improvements to water, sewerage and gas network. The sewerage network in particular was severely outdated. Central Zagreb depends on an 1892 combined sewer system which would later disastrously fail in the 2020 flash flood. Little of the money was spent on the intended purpose, being re-routed into patching up the city budget, real estate acquisition, and Sopnica–Jelkovec construction, although Bandić had vouched this would not happen when the bonds were issued. A 2013 paper called for restructuring Zagreb Holding, finding that the company was exposed to high foreign exchange risk and relied on new loans to pay off existing debts. In 2011, Zagreb Holding raised 1 billion kuna in short-term loans and used it to pay off debts. When the London bonds matured in 2016, Zagreb Holding was unable to make the payments and raised the funds by issuing a new series of bonds in the Croatian bond market. Reportedly, Holding leaders already planned to refinance in 2007. In 2017, Zagreb Fair and long-time loss-leader Zagrebački električni tramvaj (ZET) were separated from Zagreb Holding. ZET, the public transport company, operated at a loss for a long time due to Bandić's decision to allow free travel for most Zagreb citizens, and was criticised for practices such as giving a commission to drivers selling tickets. In the course of the separation, Zagreb Holding controversially retained part of ZET's assets, including a workers' holiday resort, which it sold in 2020, prompting a protest by the workers.

Research carried out by Corruption Research Center Budapest (CRCB) into City of Zagreb and Zagreb Holding found the city to be the worst among European capitals in corruption risks and public tender competition. In the 2011–2016 period, more than a third of the contracts awarded by the two entities had only one bidder, covering billions of Croatian kunas. CRCB estimated that the social loss to the entities due to inefficient pricing over this period was 2.70 billion kuna. Zagreb Holding's tenders were the most inefficient in 2013, while City of Zagreb's were in 2016, both years close to local elections. Using Benford's law, CRCB found high price distortions compared to true market value of services rendered, especially in no-competition tenders and those issued by Zagreb Holding. The tenders were mainly won by companies with high presence in the public procurement market and low international export turnover. The city also poorly utilised EU funding, below average for both Croatia and comparable European capitals. While Vodoopskrba i odvodnja, Zagreb Holding's water management company, announced it would spend 1.4 billion kuna (€200 million) from EU funds in 2014, it only received 4.5 million kuna (€600,000).

Undeveloped properties

During Bandić's mayoralty, the city acquired several brownfield properties which proved impossible to sell or develop. In April 2004, then-mayor Vlasta Pavić criticized Bandić for buying land formerly owned by the Zagrepčanka meat packing plant, as the city was unable to register itself as the owner. The controversy was dubbed "the Zagrepčanka case" by the newspapers. Pavić distanced herself from Bandić, and Bandić was heard cursing her during a session of the Assembly. Backed by SDP members in the City Assembly, Bandić launched a newspaper advertisement in support of his decision to buy the lot. Charges were brought against Bandić and others involved over the advertisement and "frequent and inadmissible attacks on [...] the court". Three years later, Bandić was acquitted; the City of Zagreb was awarded ownership of the Zagrepčanka lot in a court judgment. Bandić promised a new business district in the Zagrepčanka location. However, in 2021, the city was still hoping to balance the budget by selling the undeveloped lot.

A number of similarly derelict former factories exist in the streets around the Main Railway Station. Among a number of similar cases was that of former Janko Gredelj railway factory at the Main Railway Station. Zagreb Holding bought the closed factory from Gredelj in 2006 for 660 million kuna, a sum raised by issuing bonds. Years later, Bandić announced a plan to have the city buy the grounds from Zagreb Holding, in order to help Zagreb Holding pay off its debts. In 2006, most of the old factory was taken off the cultural heritage register while Bandić announced plans for a "new city centre". No construction has been done on Gredelj grounds, which remain occupied by decaying unmaintained buildings except for a small city-operated parking lot opened in 2018. Paromlin is another former factory complex and protected industry heritage in city ownership, located adjacent to Gredelj and the railway station. A 2006 deal to preserve the complex and use it to house a Marriott Hotel and a 2012 project to house the Main City Library both failed. In 2011, a part of the complex was razed and turned into a public parking lot. Part of Paromlin collapsed in 2013, while a different part was illegally demolished in 2014. Of the 2013 collapse, Bandić said that "if [he] had been born earlier, [he] would have created a [...] renovation project in time."

In 2007, Zagreb purchased the Potsdam Tin Theatre (German: Blechbüchse, Croatian: Potsdamsko limeno kazalište). The prefabricated theatre was bought for €80,000 and 18 million kuna (€2.4 million) was spent transporting it to the city. Despite a proposal to place it in Središće, New Zagreb, the city decided to erect the theatre at the district's outskirts in Sloboština. The Sloboština lot was bought from a private company in exchange for a lot in Trešnjevka and 12 million kuna (€1.6 million). The theatre was never assembled, and by 2015, many of its parts had been reportedly stolen.

Environment

In the mid-2010s, during the fourteen-year project of widening Radnička Road, part of the main wastewater canal (previously an open sewer) was covered and sewerage was built in Kozari putevi, one of a number of illegally built neighbourhoods in the Žitnjak area. In the 2000s, Bandić had based his campaign in Žitnjak informal settlements.

One of Bandić's perennial promises was closing the Jakuševec landfill, an ecological hazard to the city which was at times closed due to strikes, suffered from plastic waste fires, and which was at one time operated without a licence. After a strike by local residents, Bandić exempted them from an ordinance forbidding raising livestock in the city. The Jakuševec hazard was not solved by the end of Bandić's mayoralty. In the late 2010s, the city was beset by numerous fires, some allegedly intentionally started, at the private CIOS landfill, implicated in the Agram affair.

In 2018, Bandić presented a project which would mandate an allegedly newly invented form of HHO cleaning of car engines for all vehicles in Zagreb at cost to owners, in order to reduce their carbon footprint. Proof of the project's usefulness did not surface and the project was eventually pulled after criticism from engineering experts.

Political street renaming and monuments

In the early 1990s, the new post-Communist government began renaming a series of streets, returning many pre-1941 street names, but also giving some streets new names. The most controversial rename was that of the Square of the Victims of Fascism, which was named Croatian Nobles Square. After SDP came to power in 2000, the square's pre-1990 name was returned, while the new name was transferred to the nearby Stock Market Square. Though the wave of renames almost completely subsided after 1995, Bandić administration also took a leading role in a few high-profile cases of street renaming. In 2008 he opposed protests calling for renaming Marshal Tito Square, named after Yugoslavia's long-time Communist leader Josip Broz Tito, to its erstwhile name Theatre Square, saying that there were "no historical reasons to change [its] name". Nevertheless, in 2017 he proposed a successful motion to change its name to Republic of Croatia Square. Branko Lustig, a Croatian Jewish film producer and member of Bandić's party, was removed from his seat in Zagreb Assembly by Bandić after he refused to support the motion.

In 2006, a movement emerged to name a square after the first president of the Republic of Croatia, Franjo Tuđman. Right-wing supporters of Tuđman proposed renaming various major squares after Tuđman, while left-wing opponents proposed the long meadow in the wide central reservation of Croatian Fraternal Union Street. Bandić, who multiple times stated that Tuđman would get the "most beautiful square in Zagreb because he deserves it", ultimately gave the president the hitherto unnamed park behind Rudolf barracks, a move criticised by the right. The park was initially intended to be remodelled into an urban square with a water park and pavilion with shops and restaurants, creating per Bandić, "the second heart of the city". Bandić later fielded a proposal to build a road interchange there in order to speed up car traffic in the city centre. The projects were not carried out. In 2015, after forming a coalition with HDZ, Bandić ardently supported their plan to rename Zagreb Airport after Tuđman. Tuđman's bust was eventually erected on the median of CFU Street, where Bandić had in 2012 placed a number of controversial fountains.

Another 2006 controversy erupted over the 150th anniversary of the birth of scientist Nikola Tesla, which Bandić celebrated by "erecting" Ivan Meštrović's statue of Tesla, which was relocated from its original position at the Ruđer Bošković Institute (RBI) to Tesla Street in Donji grad. Various institutions, including RBI, the Academy of Fine Arts, and Ivan Meštrović Museum, stated that the decision went against the wishes of Meštrović. The sculptor had strongly intended that the sculpture be shown paired with a statue of Bošković at the RBI, going as far as to destroy the moulds to prevent replication of the statues. The return of the statue was the subject of an unsuccessful petition in 2013.

2020

In late 2019, Zagreb was beset by protests by the Zagreb Calls You initiative, Siget, Green Action, and Right to the City calling for Bandić's resignation and arrest over his alleged large-scale frauds and corruption. The protests were motivated by the expectation that Bandić would pass a new general urban master plan accommodating the "Zagreb Manhattan" project which would have involved construction on a large amounts of green spaces and sports grounds, demolition of Zagreb Fair and Zagreb Hippodrome and, according to Bandić, construction of a 200-storey skyscraper in New Zagreb. "Zagreb Manhattan" and other changes in the plan proved controversial, attracting more than 30,000 complaints from the public, which were all rejected by the city authorities. The plan eventually failed after Bandić and HDZ could not come to an agreement about amendments to the plan. Defeat of HDZ's incumbent Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović in the 2019–20 Croatian presidential election, for which the backing of scandal-ridden Bandić was blamed, contributed to the falling out between Bandić and HDZ. In early 2020, protests against Bandić were suspended due to the coronavirus pandemic, which reached Zagreb on 25 February 2020. In March 2020, Bandić was criticised for making jokes about the lack of soap in Zagreb schools, telling students to wash their hands with charcoal ash as he had supposedly done in his youth.

In the early hours of 22 March 2020, the day the coronavirus quarantine started, Zagreb was struck by a ML 5.5 earthquake. Despite its relatively low magnitude, the shallow focus of the earthquake and the poor state of Zagreb building stock contributed to widespread damage, even affecting some new buildings such as the Museum of Contemporary Art and Centar Cvjetni. Most of the hospitals, located in old buildings in the vulnerable northern part of the city, suffered damage and had to be evacuated. The damage was later estimated at €11.6 billion. In the early days of recovery, Bandić appointed himself head of civil protection in Zagreb and began holding daily press conferences on the subjects of earthquake and COVID-19. Bandić received criticism for his remark that the damages occurred because "the residents did not invest in their property", the announcement that property owners would be left to finance their own repairs, and assigning the blame for city centre damages to homeowners who did not take the city up on a façade renovation program, which in fact did not include seismic retrofitting or any other earthquake damage prevention work. A state inquiry found that none of the contracts aforementioned renovation projects had been closed, and that the emergency disaster fund had been spent on various associations, religious community projects and festivities. In April, protests against soon continued in the form of cacerolazo, while Bandić was accused by the Ministry of Construction of obstructing the recovery efforts, including refusing to house residents made homeless by the earthquake in empty and squatted social housing.

Personal life and education

Bandić was born on 22 November 1955 in Donji Mamići, Grude, PR Bosnia and Herzegovina, FPR Yugoslavia to Jozo Bandić and Ankica Tomić. He was a middle child, having an older brother Drago and younger sister Tonka. In 1974, he went to Zagreb, where he majored in defence and protection at the University of Zagreb. Students completing this major, which was in Zagreb taught at the Faculty of Political Science, were qualified to teach the subjects of defence and protection, foundations of Marxism, and theory and practice of socialism to high school students. As part of the class involved practical instruction in the Yugoslav People's Army, the students were exempted from mandatory military service; distinguished students were also granted the status of officer in the reserve force. Bandić states that, after finishing schooling, he served in the army, which some newspapers interpreted as mandatory military service.

After finishing college, Bandić stayed in Zagreb where he married his wife Vesna, with whom he had a daughter, Anamarija. In 1996, Bandić divorced his wife, citing "disagreements". A week later, his wife took advantage of a programme allowing highly discounted purchase of social apartments for people without a place to live, in order to purchase a small house in Donji grad for 35,760 kuna (€4,800), claiming she had lived there since 1975. Her request was approved by Bandić in his official capacity. Bandić remained living together with his wife in an apartment in Stara Peščenica, and in 2003, they remarried. In 2005, Bandić dismissed accusations of trying to profit from the social programme, saying: "If I had wanted to profit, I would have bought the [house] and sold it, and we would not be still paying it off today. The house was in derelict condition and had collapsed by 2014, when the Bandićs sold it to Adris grupa shareholder and billionaire Ante Vlahović for €150,000, who proceeded to build a controversial apartment building occupying its place and the adjoining lots.

In 2001, he illegally built a house in Slavagora near Samobor. Bandić and his family also owned and/or lived in several flats which he did not report in his asset declaration.

Bandić owned three horses, two of which were kept at the Zagreb Hippodrome. He also had two Golden Retrievers, Bil and Rudi, which he often walked during his work hours.

Political career

In socialist Yugoslavia, Bandić joined Croatia's communist party, the League of Communists of Croatia (LCC). In 1983, he found a job in his field in LCC's Municipal Committee of Peščenica municipality of Zagreb as an expert political worker responsible for defence and protection. After the collapse of SFR Yugoslavia, which started the transition to capitalism, LCC rebranded itself as the Social Democratic Party of Croatia (SDP). Bandić remained with the new party. In 1993 he became the secretary of SDP's Zagreb Committee, in 1995 he joined the Zagreb Assembly, and in 1997 he became the committee's president. In 2000, Bandić bought off two HDZ councilmen, finding the necessary majority to call snap elections.

Bandić was ultimately elected mayor six times, in 2000, 2001, 2005, 2009, 2013, and 2017. All the elections had a low turnout, never exceeding 50 percent. Bandić won with as little as 48,000 votes—in the 2000 election which had 689,000 eligible voters. His strongest show of support was 170,000 votes in the 2013 election against Ranko Ostojić, the candidate of Bandić's erstwhile party, SDP.

Bandić's politics were populist in nature: he split with the mayors of the 1990s by "fighting for the rights of little people", campaigning in the early 2000s in the poor neighbourhoods of Peščenica; an iconic poster portrays Bandić walking through mud in an unpaved street in Kozari Putevi. Bandić announced various populist measures, such as paying an extra salary to parents of three or more children, free public transport, and 100 kuna (€13) Easter bonuses for retirees, though not all of these measures were ever carried out whole or in part. Some measures were reversed in face of financial issues; for example, Bandić first advocated offering free rides to everyone under certain conditions in 2008, but then vyed for massive bus fare hikes in 2010, stating that it was "high time for a fair distribution of subsidies" after the public transport company ZET registered a large deficit.

In 2002, Bandić caused a political scandal by fleeing the scene of a car accident while under the influence of alcohol. Bandić unsuccessfully attempted to bribe and threatened the police officer who caught him. The police officer was fired for leaking a copy of the police report. This judgment was later overturned by a court and he was reinstated in the police force. The SDP leadership relieved Bandić of his mayoral duties and the Assembly voted in Vlasta Pavić as the new mayor, while Bandić was kept on as deputy mayor. Though she initially supported Bandić's projects despite opposition council members' protest that Bandić would use Pavić as a puppet mayor, Pavić soon expressed the same opinion herself, causing a falling out in the SDP ranks. Although SDP's president Ivica Račan sided with Pavić, Bandić would retain much of his power in the city government behind the scenes. In 2003, Bandić was reportedly attempting to force snap elections by attacking SDP's coalition partners and forming new alliances in the Zagreb Assembly. In 2004, he caused a controversy by publicly cursing out Pavić in the assembly, for which she demanded an apology. Eventually, she gave in and agreed not to run in the 2005 elections. SDP nominated Bandić as their mayoral candidate in the elections, which he won with 103,000 votes.

Health and death

On 3 July 2003, Bandić suffered a serious stroke. After a session of the Zagreb Assembly, he requested medical assistance, stating that he had begun to feel ill during the session. He was hospitalised for a few weeks, then went to Krapinske Toplice to recover, and returned to his duties in September. In 2018, he had a surgery to insert a coronary stent. In June 2020 he was again hospitalised due to suspicion of another stroke, following an apparent dizzy spell in front of the cameras where he needed help to remain upright. In August 2020 he also underwent vocal cord surgery, but the surgery was unsuccessful in resolving his speech problems, which troubled him for the remainder of his life.

Bandić died, supposedly from a heart attack, at the Sveti Duh Clinical Hospital in Zagreb on 28 February 2021, aged 65. He was the longest serving mayor of Zagreb at the time of his death. He was buried at the Mirogoj Cemetery three days later, on 3 March. The funeral was attended by senior state officials, including Prime Minister Andrej Plenković, Parliament Speaker Gordan Jandroković, and ministers Tomo Medved and Gordan Grlić-Radman. Acting mayor Jelena Pavičić Vukičević, and Ljubo Jurčić, former Minister of Economy in Račan's second cabinet, addressed the funeral ceremony. Serbian Patriarch Porfirije was expected among the speakers, but was unable to attend the funeral due to self-isolation after being in contact with a COVID-positive person. His funeral was attended by more than a thousand people in total, thus violating quarantine rules that state that a maximum of 25 people can attend a funeral.

On 22 March, the State's Attorney Office began an inquiry into the circumstances of Bandić's death, as the eyewitness accounts did not match up. The SAO tossed the case in February 2022, citing no reasonable grounds for assuming Bandić was not given proper medical care in the moments after suffering the heart attack.

Honours and awards

In 2007, Bandić joined the Brethren of the Croatian Dragon as the Dragon of Stone Gate.

In 2009, Bandić was made an honorary citizen of Srebrenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In 2018, he received the Order of Friendship from Vladimir Putin. A street was named in his honour in the Russian city of Breslan.

In 2019, an attempt to award an honorary doctorate from the University of Zagreb to Bandić was called off after protests and motions of opposition by several Faculty councils of the university, which included Bandić's alma mater, the Faculty of Political Sciences.

In 2021, Bandić was posthumously awarded honorary citizenship by the city of Vrbovsko, Croatia.