Disputes are likely to dominate they next 5 years, says Budapest mayor
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Budapest’s mayor has said that disputes are likely to dominate in the new political cycle, with “much more door-slamming, Facebook posts, and quarrelling entertaining or boring the public”.
Gergely Karácsony said in a video posted on YouTube on Thursday that over the past five years cooperation and solidarity between district mayors, the Budapest administration and the city assembly had been strong, but now assembly representatives were selected from party lists under the new system and, as such, they were party soldiers.
“I’m not certain this will be a big problem; democracy is a tricky business involving much debate and negotiation,” he said. He added, however, that he was determined to enforce the will of the voters who had given him a mandate to implement a “programme that will make Budapest a better place”. Karácsony insisted that national politics was determined by a power politics “whereby everything happens in line with the decisions of one person or a power elite.”
The mayor noted that
80 percent of assembly representatives were newcomers,
adding that “many good things” were possible, though it would be at the same time “difficult to form new coalitions with new forces, as we don’t know each other … so in recent weeks there has been a bit of door slamming”.
Regarding the wafer-thin majority that he received in the mayoral election, he said that politics in Budapest “has changed a lot” and “certain things” must be done “even more courageously than in the last five years”.
We will do better
The mayor said there was room for improvement. “We will do better,” he said.
Karácsony said it appeared that he would be starting the term without a deputy mayor.
He noted that he had proposed two deputy mayors, one who represented stability, Ambrus Kiss, while the other deputy mayor should be his erstwhile election rival, Dávid Vitézy, in view of the close result, but for now 17 Tisza Party assembly representatives were unwilling to back his proposal, guided by the party’s national political strategy.
