Signature drive fails: December 24 will not be public holiday

The signature drive for a referendum on making December 24 a public holiday has failed as merely 66,500 signatures were submitted to the National Election Office on Tuesday, Zoltán Bíró, the private individual who launched the initiative, told MTI.

For a referendum to be called by parliament, at least 200,000 signatures should have been collected from August 1 to November 28.

Bíró said he still hoped parliament would take it into consideration that a recent public survey showed 96 percent of Hungarians would like December 24 to be a public holiday.

Bíró attributed the relative failure of the signature drive to the legislative environment which he said discourages organisations from participating in the collection of signatures by imposing a fine on lost signature-collection forms.

featured image: http://budapestinfo.hu/

Source: MTI