1995 Election
The new law was passed and the date for the new by-election was called for 29 October 1995, coinciding with the general elections. It was believed that the national euphoria following Operation Storm and Croatian military successes in the last stages of the still-ongoing Bosnian War, together with a massive propaganda drive supported by the state-controlled media, would lead to Tuđman's party comfortably winning majority in the new assembly.
Although the first election results had showed HDZ gaining ground in rural areas of the former Zagreb County, opposition parties managed to achieve success in urban areas of Zagreb proper. This was very apparent in the blue-collar neighborhoods which switching their preferences from HDZ to the Social Democratic Party of Croatia (SDP), mostly due to populist rhetoric of Zdravko Tomac and organizational abilities of Milan Bandić. As a result, HDZ lost the elections for the new Zagreb assembly, and Zdravko Tomac became the Speaker of the Assembly.
Soon afterwards, opposition parties formed a governing coalition which elected a member of the Croatian Social Liberal Party (HSLS) for mayor.
Read more about this topic: Zagreb Crisis
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“Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)