Opposition parties protest sale of state-owned land

Budapest (MTI) – Parties of the opposition staged a demonstration in central Budapest on Monday to protest against government plans to sell out plots of state-owned arable land.

Benedek R Sallai, lawmaker of the initiator LMP party, said that selling the state’s assets is “transforming political authority into economic power” and “looting from the whole of society”.

Zoltan Magyar, deputy head of Parliament’s farm committee, delegated by radical nationalist Jobbik, said that all the government’s arguments for the land sales were lies, and urged further protests against ruling Fidesz’s “arrogant land grab”. He called for blocking, even physically, the auctions at which the plots would be sold.

Socialist board member Karoly Beke insisted that the government was resorting to “mafia ways” to “crib hundreds of thousands of hectares” and grant the plots to its supporters.

Former state secretary Jozsef Angyan said that the government has no authorisation to sell strategic national assets, and called the procedure “dishonest and unconstitutional”.

The demonstration was attended by several hundred people.

Photo: MTI

Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters