Croatia's opposition parties were last night heading for a landslide general election victory against the nationalist ruling party, raising hopes of closer ties with the West.
With most votes counted, a coalition of liberals and social democrats had won 70 parliamentary seats, dumping the ruling HDZ party, which was expected to finish with 48.
The election ends speculation that there would be a "sympathy vote" for the late president, Franjo Tudjman, leader of the HDZ and seen by many as the "father of the nation".
His death from cancer last month threw the HDZ into chaos, and it is still struggling to find a replacement amid splits between moderates and hard-liners. While many Croats respected him for leading them through a war of independence from Yugoslavia in 1991, they were also angry at the economic chaos engulfing Croatia.
Into this breach has come the opposition, which appears to have been propelled to power on a wave of discontent among ordinary Croats fed up with high taxes and rising unemployment.
"Croatians have risen up against the HDZ and its tyranny, against the rule of lies, corruption and scam," said the weekly newspaper Nacional.
Croatia's Foreign Minister and senior HDZ figure, Mr Mate Granic, last night conceded defeat. "We have lost the election but I pledge that we shall be a very serious and firm opposition," he said.
Western Europe has so far shunned Croatia over Tudjman's autocratic style of government and his support of Croat separatists in Bosnia. But this is expected to change with the new rulers already promising they will support Western peace efforts in Bosnia, open up their economy to outside investment and push for membership of the EU.
"It's as if a big political weight has been removed," said a Zagreb stockbroker, Mr Hrvoje Bujanovic.
Western analysts say the victory will be a shot in the arm after several years of ever-worsening attempts to get democracy moving in the Balkans.
The HDZ appears to be paying for Tudjman's policy of running the country as his personal fiefdom, distorting the economy to make a minority very rich while the majority struggled with high taxes.
"We will need a lot of sacrifices on all sides in order to turn things around soon," said the opposition's likely prime minister, Mr Ivica Racan.
One immediate promise by Mr Racan has been to slash state spending on wasteful areas.
Though not spelled out, this is expected to focus on cash to the bloated armed forces, and to the raft of grants - their amounts until now kept secret - poured into Croat-held parts of Bosnia to support hardline groups there.
In three weeks the opposition will hope to extend its victory against the HDZ by winning a presidential election. But the grouping is itself an unknown quantity.
Mr Racan is from that part of the old communist system that found no place in the HDZ order.