EMNT leader calls on ethnic Hungarians to turn up for vote

(MTI) – Zsolt Szilagyi, presidential candidate of the ethnic Hungarian EMNT party in Romania, has encouraged members of Transylvania’s Hungarian community to turn up for the presidential election scheduled for November.

It is a positive sign that the Hungarian community is slated to have two candidates to choose from, referring to rival RMDSZ’s Hunor Kelemen, Szilagyi told a press conference in Budapest on Friday.

“We in Romania are living in a centralised, corrupt country that has not been able to harness the advantages of EU membership,” he said.

Szilagyi said that Romania’s current state reform could easily accommodate the concept of autonomy.

EMNT chairman Tibor T Toro said that RMDSZ leader and Romanian deputy PM Hunor Kelemen was a captive of the Romanian government. He labelled the rival party as one “that holds the monopoly of representing the interests of Hungarians in Transylvania”.

EMNT has collected half of the 200,000 signatures necessary to officially field Szilagyi for the election, he said.

However, Toro admitted that none of the Hungarian candidates had the chance to qualify for the second round. He said that the party’s campaign would give priority to promoting the idea of autonomy.

Photo: MTI – Bea Kallos

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