Former Socialist leader quitting party to set up new formation

Attila Mesterházy, a one-time leader of the opposition Socialist Party, has announced that he is quitting the party and founding a new social democratic formation.

The Socialist leadership has been pursuing a bad strategy for years, he said, explaining his decision on Facebook on Tuesday, adding that the party was by now a “shadow of its former self”.

The Socialists, the successor of Hungary’s communist party, has consistently polled below the 5 percent threshold for seats in parliament in recent surveys.

Mesterházy is joining with László Szakács, a former official of the leftist Democratic Coalition, to set up a new social democratic party called Socialists and Democrats.

He said DK alone was not attractive to many social democratic voters.

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The Socialists said in response that the party acknowledged Mesterházy’s decision. The Socialists would continue pursuing politics for a free, democratic and fair Hungary, it said in a statement, and work towards combatting the cost of living crisis, to achieve a real wage increase and counterbalance the consequences of the government’s ill-fated economic policies.

Source: MTI