Jobbik: Hungary’s Fidesz to use Lukashenko’s methods to get rid of opposition candidate
Hungary is going to hold a by-election in one of its eastern constituencies in Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén County on 11th October as the region’s Fidesz-delegated MP passed away. The election has a certain symbolic significance since if Fidesz loses this parliamentary seat, which appears to be likely according to the data of the previous elections, then it may lose its two-thirds majority in the National Assembly.
Press release from Jobbik
Based on the conclusions drawn from last year’s municipal elections, the opposition parties, namely the Democratic Coalition, Jobbik, Politics Can Be Different, the Hungarian Socialist Party, Momentum, Dialogue and MMM decided to run a joint candidate: László Bíró, who is a member of Jobbik. Viktor Orbán, who harshly criticized the EU on his visit to Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko just a few weeks ago, now wants to block Mr Bíró from running and thus reduce the voting to a single candidate.
Just a few minutes before the deadline to announce the candidacies on Friday, Fidesz appealed against László Bíró running as the joint opposition candidate in the by-elections.
So, even though the official campaign started on Saturday morning, László Bíró is currently not allowed to run against Fidesz’ candidate who happens to be the daughter of the deceased MP.
The Fidesz regime found quite an absurd pretext to block the joint opposition candidate from running: László Bíró is a member of centre-right conservative Jobbik party, which elected a new board and a new president last January. Although Jobbik’s new president Péter Jakab has received the court resolution of his registration into his office, the competent Budapest-Capital Regional Court has failed to enter the party’s resolutions and Péter Jakab’s presidency into the registry.
And now Fidesz has just submitted an objection on the grounds that Péter Jakab is not a party president and his party cannot run candidates. With this step, Viktor Orbán and Fidesz has finally arrived at the level of eastern dictators who use administrative measures to block the opposition from participating in the elections. That is exactly what is going on in Hungary’s Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén County.
Intent on establishing a dynastic power in Eastern Hungary, the Fidesz regime is so afraid of the opposition cooperation that they decided to go to the next level: since they know that electoral fraud, vote-buying, intimidation and smear campaigns will not be enough here, they decided to block László Bíró from even entering the race.
Instead, they introduce the law of succession whereby the parliamentary seat is passed on from father to daughter.
We hope that the election committee will overrule this decision and give the green light to László Bíró and the opposition. Fidesz’ actions in Borsod would be the envy of Belarus’ Lukashenko.
We, the Hungarian opposition, right and left, conservatives and liberals refuse to back down! We no longer wish to live in a country whose Prime Minister says we don’t want to belong to the West, we no longer wish to live in a country whose Prime Minister gets along with dictators the best, we no longer wish to live in a country where courts work under political orders and where opposition candidates are blocked from running by administrative measures!
Source: Press Release