Fidesz: Early election not on the cards

Voters will choose political parties in the usual way, the head of the Fidesz parliamentary group said on Monday, vowing not to cave into demands to bring the general election forward.

An early election has not been held since 1990 and another will not be held in future, Máté Kocsis said on Facebook in reaction to the latest call for the election to be brought forward, this time by Ferenc Gyurcsány, the leader of the opposition Democratic Coalition (DK).

related article: Gyurcsány calls on ruling party lawmakers to support call for early election

He accused Gyurcsány and Tisza Party leader Péter Magyar of being stooges of Brussels. “We know full well where the wind is blowing from,” he wrote. Kocsis said the financiers of foreign people of influence had “given orders to stop Viktor Orbán from governing durably after Donald Trump takes office”, adding that Trump and Orbán opposed war and both would impair the “war policy of Brussels” as well as the implementation of the migration pact. With Trump soon taking office, “it is understandable that … it has become urgent for the Brussels elite to effect the quickest possible change of government in Hungary. This is why they want to dissolve parliament; this is why they are demanding early elections…”

Kocsis accused DK and Tisza of coordinating to bring forward the election and of “actively cooperating in Brussels and … in the Budapest assembly, too”. In the last big election “barely six months ago”, “our community” received more votes than the second, third and fourth place combined, he said, adding that this was ample evidence of the current state of voter sentiment.

The Fidesz politician said Gyurcsány’s Socialist government had presided over “extremely high” personal income taxes and poor salaries for civil servants and teachers, while Fidesz had worked to ensure broad wage increases and a three-year agreement on raising the minimum wage. PIT, meanwhile, “is the lowest in the region”, he added. Whereas Gyurcsány “took away the 13th month pension, we handed it back, and we’re making it permanent,” he wrote. He also accused the DK leader of planning to “tear down the border fence and let migrants in”.

As we wrote earlier, opposition Tisza leader Péter Magyar called for early elections.