ZAGREB, Croatia (AP) -- A former close aide to the late President Franjo Tudjman who pledged to distance Croatia from its authoritarian past has been elected as the second president in the country's nine-year history.
The 65-year-old Stipe Mesic beamed with joy Tuesday as results showed he had defeated Drazen Budisa with 56 percent of the vote. Budisa conceded defeat late Monday.A lot of work is ahead, Mesic said.
"We have to do all to enter, as soon as possible, the European Union and NATO," he said. "I will be visiting foreign countries, but I'll also invite foreign leaders to come here, to convince them that Croatia is a part of Europe and the world."
His comments were a restatement of campaign pledges to move Croatia further away from Tudjman's authoritarianism and nationalism, which plunged the country into political and economic isolation. Tudjman, who led Croatia to independence from Yugoslavia in 1991, died Dec. 10.
Mesic also vowed to "work closely" with the new government and parliament, dominated by Budisa's Social Liberals, who are in a coalition with the Social Democrats.
Congratulating Mesic on his victory, Ivica Racan, the Social Democratic leader, said his party will "have to cooperate for the benefit of all Croatian people." U.S. Ambassador William D. Montgomery personally congratulated Mesic on his victory.
Mesic will be inaugurated Feb. 18.
He will enjoy wide presidential authority for up to eight months, after which the parliament is expected to make legal changes to transfer much of the country's policy-making power to the legislature.
Soon after Tudjman's death, Croats voted Tudjman opponents into power in the legislature.
The Jan. 3 parliamentary balloting ended Tudjman's conservative Croatian Democratic Union's nine-year grip on power. That party's presidential nominee, ex-Foreign Minister Mate Granic, was eliminated in the first round of presidential voting.
Both Mesic and Budisa promised to accept curtailing of presidential powers, cooperate with the West, respect neighboring Bosnia's borders and allow the return of Serb refugees. Western officials indicated support for both candidates.
The similarity of their political messages apparently prompted many to skip the vote. The turnout Monday was 61 percent, 15 percent lower than during the first round.
But Mesic's message and the way he conveyed it -- in blunt language and with optimism -- was apparently more likable to Croats, who had grown tired by Tudjman's authoritarian style and grim posture.
Mesic is expected to fully support Croatia's cooperation with the U.N.-sponsored war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands. He went to testify there about alleged plans by Tudjman and Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to carve up Bosnia.
Mesic is also expected to help reduce Croatia's long-term financial and political support for Croats in neighboring Bosnia, whose extremist leaders sought to join parts of that country with Croatia proper.
"Their homeland is Bosnia," Mesic said. "They should look for their happiness and pleasure there."
Richard Holbrooke, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and the main architect of the 1995 Dayton accords that stopped the Bosnian war, said he hoped the new government would be a vigorous supporter of the agreement, using its influence to "persuade the Bosnian Croats to live in peace with their Serb and with their Muslim countrymen in a single country."
Mesic is no stranger to politics. Born on Dec. 24, 1934, in Orahovica in eastern Croatia, Mesic served during the 1960s as a deputy in the Croatian parliament, and Croatia's representative in the collective Yugoslav presidency in the early 1990s when the federation began disintegrating.
Mesic joined Croatia's fight for independence as Tudjman's closest aide. In 1994, however, he left Tudjman's party, protesting its aggressive policy in Bosnia, Tudjman's disregard for democracy and widely rumored corruption within Tudjman's party.
He is married to a woman of Serb and Ukrainian origin, whose family was killed in Croatia's Nazi-run concentration camp. He also has two adult daughters.