Socialists to focus on social issues in election campaign

Budapest, June 19 (MTI) – The opposition Socialist Party wants to focus on education, health care, child welfare, seniors and anti-graft efforts and the party’s candidates for leadership are on the same platform regarding these aims, the incumbent party leader József Tóbiás said on Sunday.

Joined by other Socialist politicians, Tóbiás told a press conference that the Socialists’ campaign platform will call for an independent investigative body to be set up focusing on corruption-related crime.

The four candidates for leadership are Tóbiás, deputy parliamentary group leader Tamás Harangozó, former head of the Budapest chapter Gyula Molnór, and MEP Tibor Szanyi.

On the subject of the general election in 2018, Molnár said it will “not be fairer in the slightest compared to 2014”. “We are having to compete with criminals,” he said.

Tóbias said there is a “real chance” of ousting the government, but the earlier alliances among opposition parties have failed. Instead, he called for “a nation-wide social cooperation against the Fidesz-Christian Democrats with civil organisations and trade unions included.”

The Socialists are holding party elections on June 25.

At a different press conference on Sunday, Socialist lawmaker ágnes Kunhalmi, said the changes the government has proposed to make to the state agency for schools (Klik) by carving it up into 59 smaller units will still mean “concentration and centralisation in the education system”. Until schools get their autonomy and independent budgets back the system will not work well, she said.

Photo: mszp.hu

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