ZAGREB, June 6, 2019 – Živi Zid parliamentary deputy Ivan Pernar on Thursday confirmed that he and his colleague Bramimir Bunjac would leave this Opposition party because of the dictatorship of party leader Ivan Sinčić's wife Vladimira Palfi, who is also a vice-president of this party.
Pernar said that he was considering the establishment of a new political party as well as of returning to the non-parliamentary "Abeceda Demokracije" party whose member he used to be.
Pernar dismissed allegations that his and Bunjac's decisions were motivated by the lucrative term of a member of the European Parliament, insisting that they did not want to endure Palfi's tyranny and lies.
He declined to confirm or dismiss allegations by former Živi Zid member Hrvoje Runtić, who two years ago left Živi Zid, citing suspicious donations to the party, and said that the real reason for Runtić's departure was Palfi's behaviour.
After Pernar and Bunjac earlier in the day demanded that Palfi step down or they would leave the party, Sinčić called for dialogue and said that ultimatums were not the way to solve the problems and that he planned to hold a series of intra-party meetings in the coming days.
Živi Zid seems to have started falling apart after the European Parliament elections in which it won a seat. On Tuesday, Sinčić said that MP Bunjac had been suspended for not sticking to the party's strategy in the recent European elections and to the agreement than none of the party's MPs would go to the European Parliament.
In the meantime, a video has appeared showing Živi Zid officials meeting in a flat, with Bunjac nearly getting into a fight with party member Dominik Vuletić. The bone of contention seemed to be who would fill the sole seat in the European Parliament the party has won.
Sinčić insisted that the idea had been to rotate five low-profile party members in the EP, but that since the deal was thwarted, they decided that he (Sinčić) would go to the EP and stay there until the next parliamentary election in Croatia.
Pernar criticised the release of the video as an attempt to besmirch Bunjac's reputation, while Sinčić accused Pernar and Bunjac of fame-seeking, and announced intra-party elections within the next three months.
Bunjac, who on Tuesday was suspended from the party, told reporters on Wednesday that over the past year, Živi Zid had become the property of one person, "and that person is Vladimira Palfi."
More Živi Zid news can be found in the Politics section.
