Election 2014 – Socialists call on Orban to attend TV debate

(MTI) – The opposition Socialists have called on Prime Minister Viktor Orban to attend a televised debate with party leader and PM candidate for the opposition Unity alliance, Attila Mesterhazy.

Orban is hiding and is not willing to participate in a debate, because the government had done nothing over the past four years to help young people, Tibor Szanyi, a senior Socialist, told a press conference on Sunday.

The Fidesz government had “brutally slashed” support for higher education and introduced tuition fees under a different name, Szanyi said. He added that one issue Orban needed to discuss was the Paks nuclear plant upgrade and how he had turned Hungary into “Russia’s slave”. Szanyi called the Paks contract a “humiliating and dangerous” usury deal and said an exorbitant interest would be collected even if the power plant was never completed, while Hungary would be charged huge penalties if it was late with a payment. He said that on April 6 voters would have to decide whether they want to join the East or the West, whether to “live under the threat of the Russian bear or free, as a member of the community of European countries”.