Jobbik declines to come up with nominee for president

Budapest (MTI) – The opposition Jobbik party will not nominate anyone for Hungary’s next president; the party maintains its position that the president should be elected directly by voters, Jobbik’s parliamentary group leader told a press conference on Sunday.

János Volner said that the country’s head of state should be a person who embodies national unity, whose personality will not lead to divisions and who has no affiliations to any political movement.

The group leader added that nobody had a chance to become a presidential candidate “without approval by [Prime Minister] Viktor [Orbán]” and suggested that Jobbik’s deputies should stay away from the “performance” in which the “obvious” winner will be the prime minister’s preference.

Volner slammed János Áder, the incumbent president, and Lászlo Majtényi, whose name has been suggested as a possible candidate by the leftist opposition, and said that neither could meet any of Jobbik’s criteria.

Áder’s presidential mandate will expire in May.

Source: MTI