Biggest Hungarian leftist opposition parties turned against each other: ‘culture of lies’

The opposition “must adopt a culture of truth”, Momentum MEP Anna Donáth said in a speech on Sunday, accusing fellow opposition party, the Democratic Coalition (DK), of entangling the opposition in “a culture of lies”.

In her speech streamed on Momentum’s Facebook page, Donáth said Momentum’s goal was to stand a joint opposition candidate against the Fidesz candidate in the 2024 local council elections in every municipality and district of Budapest. She said Momentum had always been open to cooperating locally.

Candidates who are credible to locals and have a chance of winning against Fidesz should be selected. They should also abide by a “culture of truth”, she said. If agreement cannot be reached on a joint candidate in a given locality, then a primary should be held, she added.

Donáth said the outcome of the EP election would be a good yardstick to judge which parties enjoyed real support.

“We must show that Momentum is the party that voters can have confidence in, that it won’t treat them as stupid; it will speak the truth and take responsibility for its actions. [Momentum] will, in other words, represent a culture of truth,” she said.

“We don’t want to dismantle opposition cooperation but to renew it,” she added.

She said the opposition had lacked credibility in the 2022 general election as voters did not believe the opposition would govern differently: they were accustomed “to politicians lying”, she insisted.

One reason why was down to the ruling Fidesz party, “which has spent huge amounts of money smearing the opposition … and the other is DK and its leader”, she said.

Viktor Orban, she said, had performed badly in the global economic environment and the prime minister had “knowingly lied” to voters about the real state of the economy.

“How credible is the opposition’s criticism of him if the same sentences can literally be said of DK’s leader?”

DK had “countless opportunities” to take responsibility for their past in government but they still campaigned “with lies and pretend to be infallible”.

“This culture of lies has kept Fidesz in power for 13 years…” Donáth said.

To change the government, “we must replace the opposition”, she said.

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