The president of the Croatian Party of Rights Dr. Ante Starcevic (HSP AS), Ruza Tomasic, who won the highest number of preferential votes on the HDZ-HSP AS-BUZ coalition slate for the European Parliament according to preliminary results of Sunday's polls, said on late Sunday evening that the result was people's message to Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) about what they thought of his attempt to "put her in a pillory".
Tomasic said in her interview by the national HTV broadcaster that over the past two weeks the premier had been trying to pillory her for "what I was saying. Actually, this is what the entire world is saying".
She ironically thanked the premier for her excellent result which she said she had not expected.
She also said that she did not think that she was a burden for the coalition between her HSP AS, the strongest opposition party -- the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) -- and the BUZ pensioners' party, due to her public statements.
"You can judge from the number of votes that I was not a burden," she added.
PM Milanovic criticised Tomasic for chauvinism and hate speech during the campaigning.
Last month, Tomasic publicly accused the president of the Independent Democratic Serb Party (SDSS), Vojislav Stanimirovic, of having been with the Serb rebels and the extremist Serb paramilitaries known as Chetniks during the military aggression against eastern Croatia in the early 1990s.
