Election 2018 – LMP candidate Szél pledges decent wages, support for families

Bernadett Szél, PM candidate of opposition LMP, has pledged decent wages, solving problems in the education system, social housing and higher support for families with a single child, if her party wins power in the upcoming election.

Speaking at LMP’s campaign closing rally in Budapest on Friday, Szél said an LMP government would “reduce the Russian influence, put an end to the hate-mongering campaign, and would not question anybody’s Hungarian identity”.

Szél said she would work to make Hungary “a country where young people return rather than escape from”.

Under LMP’s government “criminals stealing public assets” could not become politicians.

Szél said the election campaign was no longer democratic, but insisted that “most people can see through the government and want a change”.

She said Hungary had all preconditions in place to “become the winner of the next century”. “People think that their work is worth a decent salary and that they should not work in modern slavery,” she said.

Concerning family support, Szél said “it should not matter how many children or how many parents there are in a family”. She insisted that assistance should be granted not only when the parents have three children but when the first is born, and pledged doubling subsidies for single-child families.

Referring to housing, Szél said her government would embark on “the largest infrastructure programme of the past 30 years” involving the modernisation of homes and building community owned accommodation, which would also boost employment.

“Politics must get out of education” while the government should invest in the sector, Szél said and pledged doubling education spending. She argued that all over the world

“countries which have invested a lot of money in education have become winners”.

On the subject of energy, Szél criticised the government-initiated upgrade of the Paks nuclear plant, and said that while developed countries use more and more renewable energies, Hungary uses “hazardous technologies of the 1970s”. She said she had looked into the agreements around the Paks project and insisted that “they can and they must be terminated”.

Concluding her speech, Szél encouraged voters to visit the polls on Sunday, and said that “the country can be put on new foundations with a strong LMP.”

featured image: MTI

Source: MTI