Picula will be the second SDP member to announce his candidacy for party leader, following Zoran Milanovic, member of the SDP Executive Committee, who did it at a session of the Main Committee on April 21.
Picula is the mayor of Velika Gorica and leader of the Croatian parliamentary delegation at the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly. He held the post of foreign minister in the former coalition government.
The SDP will hold an extraordinary election convention on June 2, to be attended by more than 1,600 party delegates who are expected to elect a new party president.
Former SDP leader Ivica Racan resigned from his post on April 11 due to a grave illness.