Born in the Herzegovinian town of Grude, Bandić moved to Zagreb to study to become a teacher of Marxism and Defence and Protection at the University of Zagreb. Starting in the early 1980s, he rose through the ranks of the League of Communists of Croatia and its post-1990 successor, the Social Democratic Party (SDP), becoming a city councillor in 1995 and president of the SDP's Zagreb branch in 1997. Following the 1995–97 Zagreb crisis, he led the opposition against the imposed HDZ administration led by Mayor Marina Matulović Dropulić. Forcing snap elections in 2000, following the fall of the national HDZ government, Bandić ran for mayor with the SDP and won a plurality with 20% of the vote. He would go on to serve five more terms. In 2010, he was expelled from the SDP for running for Croatian president in the 2009–10 election, where he ran against and lost the second round to the SDP's chosen candidate, Ivo Josipović. In 2015, he formed a new party, Bandić Milan 365 – Labour and Solidarity Party, and entered into a coalition with the HDZ. His mayoralty was fraught with scandals and interrupted twice. First time was from 2002 to 2005 when he was caught fleeing the scene of an accident he caused while drunk driving and threatening the police officer who caught him; he resigned and was kept on as deputy mayor for social services under Acting Mayor Vlasta Pavić. The second time was in 2014–15 due to prosecution in the Agram affair which was still ongoing at the time of his death. Bandić remained mayor throughout the events, but was temporarily forbidden from exercising his mayoral duties and powers, and appointed Sandra Švaljek and later Vesna Kusin as acting mayors before fully assuming his duties. Some of the scandals led to convictions of high-ranking city officials, but Bandić himself was never convicted of a felony, though he was fined for conflicts of interest.