Opposition: Orbán’s cabinet “betrays” advocates of Olympic referendum

Budapest, February 23 (MTI) – The government has “betrayed” those who supported a local referendum to be held on Budapest’s plan to host the 2024 Olympic Games by proposing the bid’s withdrawal, the civil Momentum Movement, the proponent of the referendum, said late on Wednesday. The government has “retired in a cowardly manner”, Socialist leader Gyula Molnár commented on the government’s Wednesday proposal that Budapest’s Olympic plans should be dropped.

The government passed a resolution earlier in the day in which it proposed that the City of Budapest and the Hungarian Olympic Committee should withdraw the city’s bid to host the Olympics.

Momentum recently collected over 266,000 signatures with a view to securing a referendum on the issue.

“It is regrettable that the government… has betrayed 266,000 people by withdrawing the bid. What is more, it betrayed even the advocates of the Olympic plan,” it said.

Momentum said the signature drive was also motivated by the goal that no decision should be made on a gigantic investment project that determines Hungary’s future for several decades without the public being asked in advance.

Government ‘chickens out’ of Olympic plans, say Socialists

The government has “retired in a cowardly manner”, Socialist leader Gyula Molnár commented on the government’s Wednesday proposal that Budapest’s Olympic plans should be dropped.

Ruling Fidesz shrinks from holding a referendum on the Olympic bid because it “dreads” being defeated, Molnár said in reaction to the proposal, which came after a civil group collected over 266,000 signatures in favour of such a plebiscite.

Molnár noted that the government had earlier dropped a contested ban on Sunday shopping and threw out a decree which would have enabled “shady deals” around state-owned land, and insisted that “the opposition has defeated the government three times in a year by way of (initiating) a referendum”.