People's Office

On October 1, 2004, Đilas became the director of the People's Office, instituted by the newly elected President of Serbia Boris Tadić. The creation of People's Office was one of Tadić's election promises at the June 2004 presidential elections. Đilas stayed in the position until May 2007 when the new Government of Serbia was finally formed by the DS and the DSS-NS coalition almost 5 months after January 2007 parliamentary election. He became the Minister without Portfolio in charge of the National Investment Plan (NIP).

Minister without Portfolio in charge of NIP

His tenure, however, was short-lived since the government fell in February 2008 following the declaration of independence of Kosovo.

Đilas' time in office was marked by frequent vicious clashes with the government colleague Minister for Capital Investment Velimir Ilić. The two already had history^[13] of public feuding when they became part of the same cabinet in May 2007. It didn't take long for their feud to reignite and in October 2007 things boiled over when Ilić placed an angry, obscenity-laced phone call to Đilas' office, the transcript of which ended up in Serbian media.^[14]

Mayor of Belgrade

On 19 August 2008, Đilas was sworn in as the new Mayor of Belgrade.

During the 2008 Belgrade mayoral election campaign, Đilas was often denounced as a "tycoon" by the Liberal Democratic Party due to his amassed personal wealth. There was even a wall-spraying campaign with the phrase "Đilas Tajkun" written on various buildings around Belgrade. However, the party denied any link with the sprayed writings.

He was dismissed as mayor on 18 November 2013 and Siniša Mali was appointed as president of the Temporary Council of Belgrade.

President of the Democratic Party

In November 2012, he was elected president of the Democratic Party, replacing Boris Tadić.^[15] After the poor election results in the 2014 parliamentary elections, the DS Election Assembly was held in May, where he lost the party presidency to Bojan Pajtić. In October 2014, he resigned as a member of the National Assembly and withdrew from public life.^[16]

He left the party in June 2016, but did not want to comment on the reasons for such a decision.^[4]

Alliance for Serbia

After Belgrade City Council elections in 2018 when his list won 18.93% of the popular vote, Đilas announced a formation of a new opposition political alliance – as a counterweight to ruling SNS. His ambition was to gather all opposition political parties and organizations, regardless of their political orientation. He partially succeeded in this, and SzS was officially formed in September 2018, gathering both center left parties like DS and center right parties like NS.^[5] Since Đilas welcomed Dveri (a right wing political party) into the alliance, some liberal and left leaning organizations (notably Saša Janković's PSG) refused to take part in the alliance, though they stated they are willing to cooperate on various subjects, especially on the matter of election organization.^[6][7]

Party of Freedom and Justice

The Party of Freedom and Justice (SSP) was founded in the Belgrade municipality of Stari Grad on 19 April 2019. Đilas was elected as party president, Borko Stefanović as deputy leader and vice-president, and Marinika Tepić and Dejan Bulatović as vice-presidents. The party was able to forgo the usual registration process for political parties in Serbia when Bulatović permitted his Zelena Ekološka Partija – Zeleni to be re-constituted; legally, the SSP is a successor to Bulatović's party.

In 2020, SSP boycotted the parliamentary elections together with a considerable number of other opposition parties.^[17]

European Union and NATO

Đilas is in favor of Serbia's accession to the European Union,^[18][19] claiming that citizens of Serbia are "part of the European family of nations",^[20] and that the accession to the EU should be Serbia's strategic goal.^[19]

In April 2014, he said that the ideas that Serbia could seek compensation from NATO countries for the bombing in 1999 were "unfounded", although, as he said, "enormous" damage was inflicted on Serbia at the time.^[21] When asked whether Serbia's accession to NATO would accelerate its accession to the EU, Đilas stated that Serbia was "destroyed in the NATO bombing", that "thousands of people were killed" and that it is why it is "pointless" to talk about this topic, adding that Serbia should cooperate with NATO, "which we have been doing for a long time for the security of all who live in this part of Europe," but that Serbia's membership in NATO "is really not a topic."^[22]

Kosovo question

Đilas stated that when it comes to the issue of the disputed territory of Kosovo, the solution is not "partition, but reconciliation", and that Kosovo belongs to both Serbs and Albanians.^[23] In September 2019, Đilas told the media that his party's plan for the reconciliation process of Serbs and Albanians envisions that people who committed war crimes or incited war crimes cannot participate in the reconciliation process,^[24] while in October 2019 he said "I would never sign an agreement recognizing Kosovo's independence, which is against our laws, international law and contrary to concepts such as morality and the part I still believe in."^[25]

Economy

In one newspaper article, Đilas wrote that he stands for state capitalism and that only state investment, primary in agriculture and energetics, can start up Serbian economy. Instead of privatizing PKB, he proposes a system of state-owned agricultural enterprises which will encourage development of agriculture and food industry.^[26]