Did Croatian politician and activist Ivan Pernar find "the son of Zagreb's mayor" in an elementary school? No, that's not true: Zagreb Mayor Tomislav Tomašević, and his wife, Iva Mertić Tomašević, have no children.
The claim appeared in a video (archived here) on TikTok by Pernar on September 28, 2023, under the title (translated from Croatian to English by Lead Stories staff) "Pernar found Tomašević's son in the elementary school." The caption read (as translated):
Pernar found Senf's son in elementary school. He did not miss the opportunity to confront him.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Wed Dec 6 11:42:26 2023 UTC)
"Senf" is a nickname of Tomašević. In the video, Pernar is heard asking (as translated): "Did you remember the contract with Pripuz for a million euros more?"
Most of the comments on the video are related to the mayor's alleged child and whether or not it is OK to expose one's child on social media. It is not possible that Pernar saw the mayor's son in school: Tomašević and his wife, Iva Mertić Tomašević, have no children.
Pernar, a former member of the Croatian Parliament (2016-20), returned to the public scene in Croatia at the beginning of 2023 as a person without a party. Since then, he has been leading a campaign against Tomašević and his party Možemo! (We can!), which won the Zagreb elections.
In the fall of 2023, Pernar has been touring high schools daily and speaking against the mayor to high school students and taking videos for TikTok and other social media, such as here (archived here) and here (archived here).
Pernar is not new to this style of anti-establishment activism: In January 2017, three elementary schools from Zagreb reported him to the police due to unauthorized entry, ignoring warnings of their employees and taking selfies with minors without parental permission.
In the video about the mayor's alleged son, Pernar accuses Tomašević of having signed a contract for waste disposal with a controversial businessman, Petar Pripuz, one of the owners of the C.I.O.S. Group -- which deals with waste collection and primary processing of industrial waste -- also known as Zagreb's "king of waste."
Zagreb has been coping with the issue of waste since the May 2021 local elections, won by leftist-green political party Možemo. Its leader, Tomašević, became the capital's mayor after the sudden death of controversial politician and former Mayor Milan Bandić, whose two decades in power were mired by constant accusations of corruption and myriad instances of graft and nepotism.
Immediately, Zagreb's new administration was confronted with many problematic decisions left behind from the previous one, including the highly suspicious contract for waste disposal with the controversial Pripuz. However, Pripuz was acquitted of corruption charges in the case known as "Agram" in June 2022.
At a press conference on May 11, 2023, Tomašević explained that following a public tender, he had to sign a yearlong contract for the collection of organic waste with Ce-za-r, which is part of the CIOS Group, owned by Pripuz, which had made the most favorable offer.
