Referendum – Vote against government by staying at home, say leftist parties

Budapest, September 18 (MTI) – By boycotting the Oct. 2 referendum on European Union migrant quotas, voters will be voting against the government, the opposition Együtt, Dialogue for Hungary and non-parliamentary MoMa parties said on Sunday.

Viktor Szigetvári, Együtt’s leader, told a news conference that the three parties had joined together to campaign against the government-backed referendum.

Because at least 50 percent of the electorate must turn out to vote in order for the outcome to be legally valid, the parties say the best way of ensuring defeat of the government’s initiative is not to vote at all.

Szigetvári insisted that the ruling Fidesz party and Prime Minister Viktor Orbán were “lying” about Europe, asylum seekers and how to create security and cooperation in Hungary and on the continent, while “stealing our money without any inhibition.”

Bence Tordai, Dialogue’s spokesman, said that government referendum campaign in favour of a “no” vote on migrant quotas was “a tangle of lies”. He accused Orbán of misrepresenting the closing statement of the EU informal summit in Bratislava.

The European community is not about strengthening isolationist, competing nationalism but “we develop our Hungarian and European identities simultaneously,” he said.

Erzsébet Pusztai, MoMa’s deputy leader, said more and more people were noticing that the government has no solutions to important everyday problems. She said it was “scandalous” that Orban spoke of protecting Christian Europe while “trampling in the mud” basic Christian values. She added that the referendum was purely a way for Orban to preserve his power.

In reaction, the ruling Fidesz party said in a statement that the referendum would be a decision about everyone’s future and that of the country. It insisted that the decision was not about political parties or right and left.

“In Brussels there are ever more concrete and dangerous decisions being made on the settlement of migrants,” the statement said, adding that if the “quota package” is enforced, thousands of migrants will be settled into Hungarian towns and villages.

Source: MTI