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Fidesz launches “Democracy Centre” to monitor “Tisza’s election-day abuses”
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Fidesz has announced the creation of a new “Democracy Centre” aimed at collecting reports of alleged election irregularities.
Speaking at a Friday press conference, Fidesz MEP Csaba Dömötör said the ruling party was setting up the centre to help prevent what he described as “Tisza-linked election fraud” after “recent weeks showed that Tisza candidates and those behind them have crossed every boundary in the campaign”, according to MTI’s report.
According to Dömötör, citizens are being asked to report any irregularities or events that could influence the fairness of the vote, whether on election day itself or in the preceding hours. He urged people to document suspicious incidents with photos or videos and submit the material to the new centre. If the issue is detected inside a polling station, he said voters should immediately request that it be entered into the official minutes by the vote-counting committee.
It seems like distrust around the integrity of Sunday’s election is growing across the political spectrum. Recent polling shows that many voters on both sides already fear the other may attempt fraud.
Dömötör accuses Tisza of intimidation and vote-buying
In his remarks, Dömötör accused Tisza activists of aggressive behaviour towards Fidesz campaigners, threatening candidates, and even distributing food in exchange for votes. (Is it not ironic? Just two weeks ago, we wrote about the documentary titled The Price of a Vote, which shows that up to half a million votes could be influenced through vote-buying, intimidation, and coercion, primarily benefiting the ruling Fidesz.)
Dömötör also alleged that foreign-backed intelligence tools were being used against government politicians, alongside what he called online content restriction systems targeting right-wing voices. He further claimed that activist groups arriving from abroad in the coming days may join the opposition’s efforts.
Tisza is building its own anti-fraud network
Tisza has been building a parallel election-monitoring operation of its own. According to previous reporting by Telex, the opposition party plans to deploy two delegates to every polling station, supported by thousands of additional volunteer “watchers”, call centres and even mobile teams in areas considered especially vulnerable to vote-buying and coercion.
Tisza leader Péter Magyar has repeatedly warned supporters to document everything and avoid provocations, while candidates in several constituencies have recently filed complaints over alleged vote-buying schemes involving cash or food.
That means both major camps are entering Sunday with rival systems for monitoring and documenting possible abuses.
If you missed it: Who will cheat in the Hungarian general election on Sunday? Here’s what the latest poll found
Why this matters with only days left
With just two days until Hungarians vote, the creation of the Democracy Centre is likely to intensify already widespread fears that the losing side may challenge the legitimacy of the result.
Reuters reports Sophisticated online operators are posting coordinated waves of content in the Telegram messaging app to spread fear about what will happen if Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban loses Sunday’s parliamentary election, according to research by Vox Harbor, a data analytics firm.
Content creators and distributors who are Russian or affiliated to Russia account for a significant share of the pro-Orban content disseminated via Telegram, according to the research, which Vox Harbor shared with Reuters.
It’s a bit rich to accuse Tisza of plotting voting fraud considering Fidesz forms the government and has direct oversight of the state institutions that will conduct the election, moreover, they’ll count the votes when the polling stations close…. Their potential scope for engaging in electoral irregularities is exponentially higher, moreover, their motivation to do so is clearly higher too. It would be better if they stayed quiet about electoral fraud lest anyone accuse them of plotting the same, or as a pretext for challenging the election result in the seemingly inevitable event that they lose. If they thought they’re going to win they’d be underscoring how the election will be whiter than white, to get ahead of any accusations of irregularities.
It’s called setting the scene…
Hope any election victory will be a resounding one. Ugly if anything other than.
I totally concur with you and Norbert. Orban launching a “democracy centre” and complaining about cheating by the opposition is almost as laughable as Putin launching one with the same complaints. Here I am in Budapest where Tisza will likely win every seat except independent Hadhazy’s seat and all you see is wall-to-wall Fidesz billboards and not a single Tisza billboard in sight. Who monopolizes control of the media, who monopolizes control of advertising, who controls dissemination of information in this country, who altered the voting system, who uses government funds for partisan poltical propaganda, who uses governmental offices to push poltical propaganda even on your utility bills? Democracy has already been subverted top to bottom by the Fidesz government. Tisza is comparatively completely powerless.
I see the anti-Hungarian troll bots are very active here today, last push of fake news before common sense prevails.. tomorrow.
If the wording of the headline “Fidesz launches “Democracy Centre” to monitor “Tisza’s election-day abuses” is any indicator, is there any doubt that Fidesz will find something; especially since they have made accusations before a single vote is cast? When the fox is watching the hen house, there is going to be both eggs and chickens missing.
How nice of Fidesz! Always caring about democracy 😀