EP Elections – E-PM Expects Votes From Those Who Want To Be European And Hungarian

Budapest, May 25 (MTI) – E-PM expects the votes of Hungarians in today’s EP election who want to be Europeans, and, at the same time, remain Hungarians, the opposition alliance’s leader said on Sunday.

Gordon Bajnai, a former prime minister, cast his ballot in Budapest in the morning.

He said one of the main stakes of the ballot was to decide in what sort of Hungary voters’ children and grandchildren would grow up in, and whether they could be just as much European as Hungarian citizens.

In order to achieve this, a Hungarian opposition is needed that renews and strengthens itself so that it can offer an alternative to the current regime of Viktor Orban, Bajnai said. The Sunday EP election can serve as the first step in the process, he added.

Hungarians who cast their vote for the E-PM alliance want the opposition to undergo a renewal and to become stronger, they want “to build a normal European Hungary after the Orban regime”, and they want to prevent a takeover of power by radical nationalist Jobbik from the Orban regime, Bajnai said.

Voting in the EP election in Hungary started at 6am.

A little more than 8 million Hungarians are eligible to vote to elect 21 members to the 751-member European Parliament from candidates on eight party lists in a single-round ballot.

The 10,386 polling stations will close at 7pm. It is expected that preliminary results will be announced at around 11pm, when nearly all votes have been counted, except for those cast abroad. The final result is expected to be announced on May 29.

Photo: MTI – Zoltan Mathe

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