K. Nielsen as chairman of the SF. Some members doubted his ability to run the party, but these doubts were put to rest after the 2007 parliamentary election, in which SF quadrupled its number of seats. In February and March 2008, Søvndal attracted attention with remarks he made about the Islamist organization Hizb ut-Tahrir. For several weeks, SF did better in the polls than the Social Democrats, and other polls indicated that he enjoyed greater support than Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the leader of the opposition. Søvndal received considerable praise for improving the party's popularity. In a September 2009 poll, 34% of respondents considered him the country's best party leader. The former press officer for the Conservatives in Parliament, Niels Krause-Kjær, has said about Søvndal: "With the dominance of the TV media, the mastery of the quick, well-timed one-liner is of enormous importance. There weren't many, to be sure, who had confidence that Villy Søvndal had this ability when he took control of SF, but they turned out to be totally wrong. He was pigeonholed as the slightly boring professional politician, but when the limitations fell away he started having fun. He enjoys the role as political leader and enjoys himself in a way nobody had expected". Niels Krause-Kjær commented on Villy Søvndal's role in SF's success by saying that Søvndal has said himself that he thinks his strength lies in his ability to "communicate messages clearly and crisply", in his optimism, as well as in his ability to use humor in political debate. After his election as party leader, some members criticized the party for focusing too intensely on Søvndal. The presence of several large posters of Søvndal at SF's national convention in 2007 drew criticism. Søvndal himself later replied the criticism by saying that "modern politics is also about people and trust in people", while emphasizing that he was not a power-grabber. During the run-up to the 2011 parliamentary elections, however, support for SF sank considerably, and the election results, which dropped SF's number of seats to 16, was very disappointing, even though the party became a part of a coalition government for the first time. On 7 September 2012, amid criticism that he had neglected his role as party leader since assuming the position of Minister of Foreign Affairs (see below), Søvndal announced that he would resign as party leader, so that his successor would have time to get