Local elections – Socialists endanger opposition election pact, says E-PM

(MTI) – The opposition E-PM party alliance on Saturday said the Socialists were endangering an opposition cooperation agreement for the local elections and asked them not to do so.

After a draft agreement was approved on Monday, the Socialists had unilaterally redrafted the agreement on Friday with elements which were not favourable to E-PM or the leftist opposition Democratic Coalition (DK), E-PM said in a statement sent to MTI.

E-PM welcomes the Socialists’ support for the joint mayoral candidate Ferenc Falus, but re-writing the agreement unilaterally hurts the trust between the parties involved, the statement said.

“We believe that it is only possible to alter an agreed cooperation pact with consent from all parties,” E-PM said.

E-PM calls on the Socialists to remedy the situation by the planned signing of the joint agreement on Monday, otherwise E-PM would withdraw from the cooperation and run alone in the autumn elections, the statement added.

Agnes Kunhalmi, the head of the Socialist Party’s Budapest chapter, said on Saturday that there were only minor issues to be resolved in the cooperation and these should not endanger agreement on the whole. She said that the Socialists had accepted Falus’s joint candidacy while he will be listed in E-PM colours on the voting ballot. She said there were debates regarding candidates in two or three districts, but this should not jeopardise an agreement.

Photo: MTI – Balazs Mohai

Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters