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 switched support from HDZ to the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SDP), mainly due to the populist rhetoric of Zdravko Tomac and organizational abilities of Milan Bandić, prominent SDP members at the time. As a result, HDZ eventually lost the elections for the new Zagreb assembly, and Zdravko Tomac became the new Speaker of the Assembly.