"Let's go to work. We can make mistakes, but we mustn't stand still. We mustn't let down all the people who have placed their trust in us today," the Social Democratic Party (SDP) president and the next Prime Minister of Croatia, Zoran Milanovic, said at the election headquarters of the centre-left Kukuriku coalition which took a convincing lead in the parliamentary election on Sunday.
Kukuriku won 78 seats in the 151-seat parliament after 56.55 per cent of ballots were counted, the State Election Commission said in a report released at midnight.
Milanovic said in his address that people expected "big things" from the new government so "we mustn't let them down."
Speaking of voters who had not voted for the Kukuriku coalition, Milanovic said that every day he and his coalition partners would make sure that they were a good government to them. He told his political rivals that he and his coalition partners wanted to work together with them for the benefit of Croatia.
Milanovic thanked all previous governments for their contribution to the country's efforts to join the European Union, which is scheduled for 1 July 2013.
