Hungarian socialists urge opposition to unite

The Fidesz party could “recapture” Budapest unless parties of the opposition field joint candidates in the June municipal elections, the Socialist Party’s co-leader, Ágnes Kunhalmi, said on Tuesday.

The Socialists will launch a signature drive to gather support for the opposition to cooperate in the municipal and European parliamentary elections held on the same day, she said, adding that the goal was to collect 100,000 signatures before March 15.

The initiative could send a message to the opposition parties that “it is their hard and fast duty to cooperate with each other,” she said.

“In an anti-democratic authoritarian system, opposition parties should not compete with each other,” Kunhalmi said, adding that Fidesz could be defeated in both elections if the opposition united.

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She also proposed “systematic cooperation in periods between elections”, adding that this was “the one method the opposition has not tried yet”.

Socialist group leader Bertalan Tőth cited a recent survey indicating that 80 percent of voters supported the opposition fielding joint candidates and 94 percent would support joint opposition lists. “Opposition voters do not blame cooperation itself for the election fiasco of 2022, but the quality of that cooperation,” Tőth added.

Also, he said that separate opposition parties would receive fewer votes than if they stumped together for the EP election, insisting that a united opposition could win ten EP mandates against nine for Fidesz.

Source: MTI