Josip Broz Tito died in his 88th year, having ruled over Yugoslavia for nearly four decades. The momentous year of his death in 1980 brought about numerous changes to the political structure of Yugoslavia, deepening the pre-exsiting crisis. One year after Tito's death, the Kosovo crisis occurred. The conflicts between Albanians and Serbs in that province were beginning to experience their culmination. The difficult political crisis was further aggravated by the economic crisis, which had hit Yugoslavia in the worst possible time. Numerous reforms, including program stabilization, were ineffective. Low rates of economic efficiency, inflation, and devaluation all marked the 1980s in Yugoslavia. One of the most important elements that had contributed to the collapse of Yugoslavia was nationalism. Following Tito's death, it eventually became more pronounced and dangerous for the survival of the Yugoslav federation. The rise of nationalism was followed by the rise of Slobodan Milošević, a man who would, as a representative and an advocate of Serbian nationalism, severely shake the very foundations upon which Yugoslavia was built on. Croatia and Slovenia did not approve of such scenario. Towards the end of the 1980s, more precisely in 1989, the Yugoslav republics began to walk down a path built upon the concept of a multiparty system. In Croatia, newly-formed parties such as HSLS and HDZ began to appear. Having won the first free elections by a landslide, the Croatian Democratic Union peacefully seized power formerly in the hands of the long-ruling communist party. At the beginning of 1990, the final congress of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia was held. Inter-ethnic intolerance resulted in an interruption of the congress. In the years which followed, Yugoslavia was in a state of perpetual war, and its republics were forced to pay a hefty price for their newly-found independencies.