Hungarian Deputy Prime Minister advocates simpler rules for voting by mail at 2018 elections

Budapest, March 24 (MTI) – Simpler rules are needed for voting by mail at the 2018 elections, as well as for granting Hungarian citizenship in a fast-track procedure, Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjén said in an interview with Magyar Idők published on Friday.

Semjén argued that the current regulations for voting by mail were overcomplicated and added that the government would submit an amendment proposal.

As for rules governing citizenship procedures, Semjén said they were too stringent and suggested they could be eased in such areas as required Hungarian language skills. He added that granting citizenship in a fast-track procedure was the most effective way of preventing the assimilation of ethnic Hungarians beyond the borders.

A total of 940,000 people have received Hungarian citizenship under the scheme, including mostly residents of the Carpathian Basin and also some 110,000 diaspora Hungarians, he said.

Semjén said reports about abuses of the scheme were mostly false. After strict screening, a total of 32,000 applications have been rejected, mostly from Ukraine, and the 55 cases which involved legal proceedings is an insignificantly low number, he added.

Photo: MTI

Source: MTI