Croatia elects its first woman President

The conservative populist Grabar-Kitarovic, beat centre-left incumbent Ivo Josipovic by securing 50.5% of votes against 49.5% of votes for Josipovic.

Josipovic has conceded defeat and congratulated his opponent. The challenger’s win is seen as a sign that Croatia would like to change direction, after the centre-left coalition failed to end six years of downturn.

Turnout for the election was of 58.9%, around 12% more than the first round which was held around two weeks ago, and which resulted in an equally close gap of around 1%.

Ms Gabar-Kitarovic is a Conservative member of the Croation Democratic Union party (HDZ), which pushed the country towards independence from former Yugoslavia in 1991.

"I will not let anyone tell me that Croatia will not be prosperous and wealthy," she told supporters in the capital Zagreb while calling for national unity to tackle the economic crisis.

Josipovic, had been president since 2010, and he had been popular for so long, that it seemed impossible he would not be re-elected.

Mr Josipovic proposed constitutional changes in an attempt to solve the economic crisis, however his problem was that he was backed by the governing, centre-left coalition that has failed to pull Croatia out of a six-year-long recession.