Fidesz mayoral candidate Szentkirályi: I prepare for a job that calls for rolling up my sleeves

Alexandra Szentkirályi, the ruling Fidesz party’s candidate for mayor of Budapest, has said she believes in Budapest and is ready to fight for the city. “I am preparing for a job that calls for rolling up my sleeves,” she said in an interview published by weekly Mandiner on Thursday.

“I am a politician focused on discipline,” Szentkirályi said, adding that “we have a clear vision of what kind of a city we would like to see as the nation’s capital.”

“Budapest is the centre of all Hungarians in terms of culture and is of special significance in terms of its economic strength.”

She said that while the Fidesz-led government had carried out several development projects in the capital, including City Park, the State Opera House, the National Dance Theatre and the completion of the fourth metro line, “all the left has done was present visions about power, being unable to look beyond their own interests”.

Szentkirályi slams incumbent mayor

Szentkirályi criticised Gergely Karácsony, the incumbent mayor, describing him as a “controversial politician”, who she said had found “an enemy in the government that offered its cooperation which the mayor rarely accepted”.

“The problem is with his approach, not the opportunities,” Szentkirályi said, arguing that Karacsony had failed to deliver on 75 percent of the long-term programme goals he announced after being elected in 2019.

The city’s current leadership “benefits only the camp of [opposition DK leader] Ferenc Gyurcsány,” the Fidesz candidate said, adding, however, that “we would fill municipal posts with experienced and hard-working professionals instead of failed politicians”.

She said that if elected mayor, she would promote further developing the city’s public transport and parking systems with a view to reducing car traffic as well as handle the issue of homelessness “in a humane but pro-order manner”.

Szentkirályi pledged to double resources aimed at keeping the city’s public places clean and set up a system of city caretakers.

In a broader context, she said that “similarly to Europe, Budapest is a battleground of globalists and sovereigntists”.

“The Hungarian dollar left is practically getting paid and commanded by the globalist centre in Brussels,” Szentkirályi said, insisting that “this is why it is clear to me that the EP and municipal elections are closely related”.

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