Politicians encourage Hungarians’ voting in Romanian election

Hungarian Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjén urged Transylvanian Hungarians living outside Romania to support the ethnic Hungarian RMDSZ party in Romania’s parliamentary elections this Sunday.

“It is not just those living in Romania who should vote but also the hundreds of thousands or millions in the diaspora,” the deputy PM in charge of Hungarian communities abroad, church policy and national and ethnic minorities said on social media on Friday.

If members of the diaspora do not vote in large enough numbers, Hungarians may not be able to secure the level of representation they need in Bucharest, Semjén said.

Zsolt Molnár, the deputy leader of parliament’s national cohesion committee for the opposition Socialists, also called it important for the ethnic Hungarian RMDSZ party to achieve good results at the December 6 Romanian parliamentary elections.

The Hungarian Socialist Party has for long nurtured good relations with the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania, and it has also been providing help to RMDSZ during the coronavirus pandemic, Molnár said in a video message on Facebook on Saturday.

He called Sunday’s ballot important from the point of view of the entire Hungarian community, and he appealed to those eligible to seize the opportunity and cast their ballots.

Meanwhile, Miklós Kásler, Hungary’s human resources minister, has also appealed to Hungarians in Romania to go out to vote.