"Generally, we can be satisfied with the results of the local election: in some larger centres where we didn't have direct influence on administration until now, now we do and in some we don't", Milanovic said, adding that it was difficult to put a full-stop to it all "as impressions are always bitter-sweet". "You win some, you lose some", he said.

Milanovic said that as president of the SDP and prime minister he was worried about the mess that occurred during the campaign in "a bitter struggle for two or three city cash boxes."

"That's dangerous and this campaign was not dirty but malignant - particularly in some centres like Vukovar, Sisak and Split", he said.

He added that he was not satisfied even though some masks had fallen.

"The burden remains and someone will have to do the cleaning up without getting hurt and that will once again be left up to us. Just like we've been cleaning up the mess we inherited from the previous government, we will continue to work after these elections", Milanovic told a press conference.

Asked whether there would be changes made in the SDP's Zagreb branch, Milanovic said that that branch had done what it could. "SDP is still the strongest party in Zagreb but the results are unsatisfactory", SDP's leader said.

Milanovic said that he respected the fact that Milan Bandic was re-elected mayor of Zagreb but "I will not applaud". "That's no good, that's clientelism and corruption and within the limits of my authority I will speak about that publicly and will not be perturbed", he added.

"In the end we have a job to do, including the health minister who did not win at these elections and whose job is ten times harder than being the mayor of Zagreb," Milanovic concluded.