Party leader Puljak claims they are the fastest growing party.
“Left-wing parties are trying to court right-wing voters, and people who are disappointed with such approach have been increasingly turning towards us”, said in Split the Pametno Party president Marijana Puljak, commenting on the recent secretly recorded meeting between SDP president Zoran Milanović and representatives of veterans’ associations, reports Večernji List on August 29, 2016.
Puljak added that Pametno (Smartly) could be the surprise of these elections. “They say that we are elitists, they tell us that we are stupid because we call ourselves smart, since to succeed in Croatia you have to be a thief, a fraud or somebody who plagiarizes other people’s academic works”, she said. Puljak pointed out that there are more and more people who want to join Pametno Party because they have recognized it as the only political option which advocates for a modern, tolerant and open Croatia.
“They say that we are elitist because we do not want to give false promises to people, they say that we are nerds because we believe that voters have a right to see a real political programme and how would such s programme fit within the state budget”, said Puljak, adding that the Pametno Party was the fastest growing party.
One of the candidates in the tenth electoral constituency is Lucija Puljak from Pučišća on the island of Brač, who pointed out the lack of strategy for the development of sustainable tourism in both Split and the surrounding islands. “Islands become a topic of conversation only sporadically during election campaigns, and there is no comprehensive approach to their development”, she said, adding that Pučišća was an example how to approach sustainable development of tourism, in order to increase the quality of life of the local population and to become more interesting for guests.
Pametno Party is seen by some as a more liberal version of MOST, trying to establish itself as a “third way” party, different from HDZ and SDP. Although current polls do not show they could reach the five-percent electoral threshold needed to enter Parliament in any of the ten constituencies, it is believed that any Pametno MPs would probably be ready to support a possible SDP-led government.
