Opposition E-PM Party Alliance Splits

Budapest, November 10 (MTI) – The opposition Dialogue for Hungry (PM) party has decided to terminate its alliance with Together (Egyutt), PM co-leader Gergely Karacsony told news portal index.hu late on Sunday.

The two parties formed an alliance before Hungary’s parliamentary election in spring this year.

In a statement published on its Facebook page, PM said it would act as an independent political party in future, but would continue to rely on Together and “all other creditable and democratic parties” as partners.

Together leader Viktor Szigetvari, however, told Index that he considered PM’s decision “to be in conflict with earlier negotiations”. He added that his party was interested in maintaining a “loose but institutionalised partnership” with PM and said he would seek further talks on the subject.

Szigetvari told MTI that whereas it would not be possible to reform the alliance in the short term, Together would keep its doors open to PM so that the two parties may continue to work to change Hungarian politics. Dialogue for Hungary owes the activists and voters of Together, who worked over the course of three elections to get their joint representatives into parliament, the European Parliament and local councils.

Voters “one step removed from battles of domestic politics” are no longer interested in which organisation builds its identity in which form, Szigetvari said, commenting on an interview Karacsony gave earlier in the day to public radio, in which he said that PM wanted to provide an independent, green and left-wing alternative, and Together was blocking its attempts to pursue an independent policy platform.

Szigetvari said Sunday’s decision had come as a surprise to him, and he had earlier trusted the parties would institutionalise their cooperation.

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