Opposition to file complaint against House Speaker Kövér over comments on redrawing of electoral map

The opposition Socialist Party on Monday said it would file a criminal complaint against House Speaker László Kövér for electoral fraud after an audio recording of him surfaced talking about the government’s motives in the redrawing of the boundaries of election districts.

In the audio recording that surfaced late last week on news blog Reflektor, the house speaker can be heard saying that there had been “some geographical juggling” on the government’s part when it redrew constituency boundaries in the 2012 electoral bill.

Speaking at a press conference, Socialist Party board member Balázs Bárány said the recording of Kövér could be taken as a confession that Fidesz had “cheated” in the 2014 election.

Bárány said there were no historical, cultural or geographical reasons behind the current voting district boundaries. “The goal is clear: the vote of a Fidesz voter has to be worth more than that of someone who votes for the opposition,” Bárány said.

He noted that in 2014, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) had also voiced concerns over the electoral law.

“Now that László Kövér has admitted that one of the concerns at the time was valid, it might be worthwhile talking about the other concerns, too,” Barany said. One of the examples he cited was that the current election law “differentiates between voters based on their being an ethnic Hungarian living beyond the border or a young Budapest resident who had fled to London”.