Opposition: Orbán’s economic and social policies have failed
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s economic and social policies have failed, the co-leader of opposition LMP said on Monday at a joint press conference held online with two other politicians presenting the opposition’s social programme.
Máté Kanász-Nagy, introducing himself as spokesman on social affairs in the shadow government of prime ministerial candidate Péter Márki-Zay, said that inflation was sky-rocketing, social inequalities were “set loose” and poverty was increasing.
If the opposition forms the next government, family allowances will be increased, a subsidised rental housing scheme launched and people caring for relatives living with disabilities no longer neglected, he said.
András Jámbor, a candidate of Párbeszéd and the opposition alliance for next year’s election, said that
Hungary had been suffering from a housing crisis for over a decade.
He said the government had cancelled the only large-scale accommodation project, dubbed Student City, and instead plans “to bring in a Chinese private university which will drive the country to indebtedness”. Citing surveys, he said that
home prices in Budapest had increased by 10 percent in a year.
Some 62 percent of people aged 18-34 live with their parents, Jámbor said. Despite having a full-time job, some 70 percent of Hungarians aged 25-34 and living with their parents cannot afford having their own home, he added.
Once a new government comes to power, he said, a new housing subsidy scheme will be launched, expanded options offered for employers to support accommodation and an advance savings scheme launched for home purchases.
The forced evacuation of tenants who cannot pay back their forex-denominated mortgages will be suspended for an unspecified period of time and a fund set up to compensate those that lost their homes, he said. The family insolvency service will be expanded and support for home maintenance and debt management reintroduced, he added.
Lajos Korozs of the Socialists said that local governments would be once again in charge of offering crisis aid. He promised that once in government, wages for social workers will be raised by 50 percent and the range of home services expanded.
Read alsoOpposition PM candidate: Orbán organises migration, executes “Soros plan”
Opposition: state practically being controlled by the Fidesz mafia!
Hungary’s opposition parties on Thursday called on Justice Minister Judit Varga to step down in the wake of bribery allegations against a former senior ministry official.
Pál Völner resigned as state secretary on Tuesday after the chief prosecutor’s office asked parliament to lift his immunity so he can defend himself against charges of receiving bribes on a regular basis. At an online press conference held in front of the justice ministry, the opposition Momentum, Párbeszéd, Jobbik, LMP, Democratic Coalition (DK) and Socialist parties, along with the Everyone’s Hungary Movement (MMM), called on Völner to also step down as a lawmaker.
Noting that Thursday marked International Anti-Corruption Day, Momentum board member Miklós Hajnal said “systemic corruption” in Hungary was “also visible from the inside, not just at the tip of the iceberg”.
“They are practically running a criminal organisation within the ministry, and the state is practically being controlled by the Fidesz mafia,” he insisted. Hajnal said the opposition would “cleanse” every ministry if it won next year’s general election and aimed to ensure that Hungary was “not the European champion of corruption”.
Párbeszéd’s Bence Tordai said two other MPs of ruling Fidesz, György Simonka and István Boldog,
faced “similar allegations to Völner”, but “their parliamentary seats are the key to maintaining Fidesz’s two-thirds majority”.
György Szilágyi of Jobbik said “the most shocking thing” was that Hungary “has become the most corrupt country in the European Union”.
LMP group leader László Lóránt Keresztes noted that
Völner is suspected of having received “millions of forints” in bribes from the president of the branch of bailiffs over a sustained period of time.
“Until the threads of corruption are investigated, the repossessions need to be suspended,” he said. Keresztes added that because Völner had also been in charge of approving surveillance requests, “we must assume that he also handled those in a corrupt manner.”
Socialist lawmaker Ildikó Borbély Bangó called for details of the case surrounding Völner to be declassified. She wanted to know whether Völner had
“provided services to certain individuals in other areas” and if the bribes in question had “also ended up in other places”.
DK’s László Varju said Volner’s asset declaration was not a reliable source of information in the investigation against him, arguing that he and his family “hid their illegally-acquired wealth in the business empire they own”.
MMM board member Katalin Lukácsi, who spoke on behalf of Péter Márki-Zay, the opposition alliance’s prime ministerial candidate, speculated that the justice minister and Prime Minister Viktor Orbán had been aware of Völner’s actions. “In a happy country the justice ministry is the headquarters of honour, but in Hungary it’s just another subcontractor of the
crime syndicate led by Viktor Orbán,”
she said.
In response, the ruling Fidesz party said that while corruption among the ranks of the left wing had happened with impunity, Völner was prepared to clear his name in court. “The left wing should examine itself: [Momentum’s]
Katalin Cseh is up to the eyes in a corruption scandal, a mafia is operating at the Metropolitan Council,
and the cronies of [ex-premiers Ferenc] Gyurcsány and [Gordon] Bajnai are acquiring real properties in Budapest for bribes,” Fidesz said in a statement. While the left wing has shown no intention of investigating its cases, Völner is prepared to clear his name, and pro-government MPs will vote to lift his immunity to enable him to do so, Fidesz said.
Read also Opposition: state practically being controlled by the Fidesz mafia!
Hungarian opposition a national security threat?
Hungary’s opposition alliance is filing a criminal complaint concerning Speaker of Parliament László Kövér’s recently leaked remarks made a year and half ago before secret services leaders, Párbeszéd group leader Tímea Szabó said on Tuesday.
Szabó told a press conference that the government had demonstrated in recent weeks that it was incapable of refraining from illegal methods to maintain “corrupt … fraudulent power”. First it was revealed that
the government had purchased the Pegasus software to spy on opposition politicians, independent journalists an economic players,
and then Kövér’s speech was leaked in which he “encouraged secret service leaders to violate the law and spy on opposition lawmakers, basically up-ending law and order,” she said.
Szabó said a report would be filed to the Central Chief Prosecution Office of Investigation concerning secret information gathering and the unauthorised use of concealed methods.
Socialist lawmaker Ildikó Borbély Bangó said the house speaker had crossed a line that no politician or public dignitary was allowed to.
DK deputy group leader Gergely Arató said Kövér’s remarks clearly showed ruling Fidesz’s way of thinking.
“The country [they think] belongs to them and the others, who think differently are enemies”.
Read alsoSpeaker: “Europe can only be made strong thanks to strong nation states”
The opposition would authorise local governments to make mask-wearing compulsory
A cooperation dubbed ELEGY and formed by opposition parties, politicians and civil organisations has called for urgent government measures to slow the spread of coronavirus infections.
Vaccinations prevent severe cases of infection but cannot stop the spread of the virus, a statement by ELEGY member Democratic Cooperation (DK) said on Wednesday.
ELEGY demanded authorising local governments and other institutions to make mask-wearing compulsory. It also called on the government to make available mass antigen testing for Covid-19 free of charge, initially in educational institutions, the statement said. In an effort to simplify the process of getting vaccinated, ELEGY urged the government to cancel the requirement of pre-registration.
ELEGY demanded authorising local governments and other institutions to make mask-wearing compulsory. It also called on the government to make available mass antigen testing for Covid-19 free of charge, initially in educational institutions, the statement said. In an effort to simplify the process of getting vaccinated, ELEGY urged the government to cancel the requirement of pre-registration.
The statement has been signed by politicians of DK, Jobbik, LMP, the Hungarian Liberal Party, the new Everyone’s Hungary Movement (MMM), Momentum, the Socialists and Párbeszéd, and representatives of ELEGY.
Read alsoMore than 3,000 new COVID infections registered in only 24 hours
Opposition PM candidate: 2022 election ‘over the freedom of the Hungarian nation’
Péter Márki-Zay, the opposition’s prime ministerial candidate, addressing supporters at a commemoration of the 1956 revolution in Budapest on Saturday, said the message of joining together embodied in uprising 65 years ago was still relevant today, and next year’s general election would be a “colossal battle”.
Márki-Zay said the battle was over “the freedom of the Hungarian nation”. “Together for a Free Hungary!” he declaimed.
He called for the ruling Fidesz party to be denied a parliamentary majority next spring.
“With total national unity, now we can demonstrate that we are the majority,” he said, adding that the current power holders were “morally unacceptable”.
Márki-Zay, who is also the mayor of Hódmezővásárhely, said the opposition’s current battle should be inspired by the youth of 1956, “but it should also be peaceful, not armed”.
Photo: MTI/Szigetváry Zsolt
“We’re fighting for a country of love,” he said, adding that for this, every single Hungarian was needed.
Gyurcsány: opposition parties running together far more important than DK
Speaking at the joint event of Hungary’s opposition parties, Márki-Zay said that people today were as sick and tired as they had been in 1956. They were fed up, he insisted, with the “party state”, with “falling behind the West”, and with “poverty, intimidation, political cronyism, mounting Russian influence and hate campaigns.”
“Only together can we win,” he said, adding: “Go Hungary! Go Hungarians!”
Márki-Zay pledged to hold a referendum on adopting a new constitution and an independent judiciary, and he vowed for Hungary to join the European Public Prosecutor’s Office. He promised freedom of the press, the autonomy of local government and a new electoral law. He also vowed that Hungary would join the single currency.
The foreign media picked up the Hungarian pre-election
The prime ministerial candidate also promised to keep Hungary’s fence on the southern border intact. But, he added, “criminal migrants imported by Fidesz” would be expelled from the country.
Officials who had profited from migration and deals to import the Chinese coronavirus vaccine “for double the market price”, as well as ventilators that went unused, would be held accountable, he said.
Márki-Zay said Hungary would be a place in which skin colour nor race would not be factors in determining a person’s opportunities. “Even Fidesz politicians” would be free to declare their homosexuality, he added.
He insisted that Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s family and friends were also in the fight for the country, “so we must be ready for lies and slander campaigns”. He said the opposition would be landed with accusations of “settling migrants”, plans to “put up prices” and of conspiring with [former Socialist prime minister] Ferenc Gyurcsány, against whom, he added, allegations of corruption had been left unproven after 12 years.
Viktor Orbán’s speech at the commemoration ceremony of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution
Referring to government tax and support measures announced before the election, he insisted Fidesz “has even started working for you” under the pressure of a resurgent opposition.
He said young people would have the biggest role to play in spreading the opposition’s message ahead of the election.
Jobbik leader Péter Jakab noted that a year ago six opposition party leaders vowed to put their candidates running for the post of prime minister on a common stage today. “Here were are; we’re together and we’ll win”
Klára Dobrev, the Democratic Coalition MEP who lost to Márki-Zay in the primary run-off, said that being a democrat meant embracing diversity and encouraging diversity in everyday life. This, she added, would be a great strength in the battle with the “monolith system of Viktor Orbán”.
“Next spring, we either win together or we all fail. This is our responsibility,” she added.
Gergely Karácsony, the mayor of Budapest who stepped aside before the run-off, said the opposition was getting ready for “a gentle revolution” in the spirit of fulfilling the promise of October 23, 1956, and 1989.
He insisted that October 23, 2021, marked the birth of “the fourth republic”, making Hungary “our common homeland once again”.
All those who competed in the opposition’s primary then took to the stage together at the end of the event.
Read alsoHuge masses attend the commemoration of the 65th anniv. of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution
Opposition would restrict offshore business in Hungary
The opposition Socialist-Parbeszed alliance is submitting to parliament a package of bills aimed at restricting the operations of offshore businesses in Hungary, lawmakers of the parties said on Thursday.
The party alliance is proposing the establishment of a transparent database of offshore business owners that would be free to access, Párbeszéd lawmaker Bence Tordai told an online news conference. Tordai said the Hungarian government had taken too long to comply with a European Union law requiring it to create such a database, adding that the regulations on the database will only come into effect next June.
The parties are also proposing
The parties are also proposing
a special tax on offshore companies
and requiring offshore business owners to pay personal income tax unless they can verify their company’s activities in the country in question, he said. Under the laws, offshore companies would also be ineligible for state and EU support, Tordai said. Another proposal concerns the expansion of the rules on conflicts of interest, he said, adding that if passed, this law would ban party officials from taking on roles in offshore companies.
The package is also backed by green LMP, he said, and he expressed hope that the Democratic Coalition and Jobbik would also support it. Socialist Party deputy group leader Tamás Harangozó told the same press conference that offshore companies were estimated to cause thousands of billions of forints’ worth of damage to Hungary’s state budget and the Hungarian people each year. The money lost to offshore business activities, he said, could be used to fund education, health care and pension hikes.
Harangozó noted that a recent dump of documents on offshore activities known as the “Pandora Papers” exposed the offshore affairs of 35 world leaders, with press reports saying that multiple Hungarian nationals were implicated in the leaks.
Featured image: illustration
Read alsoHungary on track to become an offshore paradise?
Fidesz communication head: Over 1 million Hungarians sign anti-Gyurcsány petition
More than one million people so far have signed the ruling alliance’s “Stop Gyurcsány! Stop Karácsony!” petition launched on Sept. 1 ahead of next year’s general election, Fidesz’s communications head said on Sunday.
The ruling parties aim to use the petition to reach out to everyone who believes that Hungary should not return to the politics of the past, István Hollik told public broadcaster Kossuth Rádio.
Referring to the opposition primaries, Hollik said that because Democratic Coalition leader Ferenc Gyurcsány “hasn’t been able to win a general election for a long time now, he’s now organised himself a little house championship”.
Hollik said the results of the first round of the primaries indicated that “Gyurcsány has again taken over the left”, adding that Momentum Movement candidate András Fekete-Győr’s last-place finish showed that “the left’s attempt to reinvent itself has also failed.”
It’s like in Netflix’s House of Cards: former PM Gyurcsány’s wife wins opposition primary
“It’s obvious to everyone that Ferenc Gyurcsány is the leader of the left and that there’s nothing at stake anymore in the primaries,” he said. “The only question is whether the left will field Gyurcsány’s wife or Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony as its candidate for prime minister.”
Hollik said that whereas the Fidesz-Christian Democrat government had cut taxes for businesses, the leftist governments of the 2000s had raised them. While the left scrapped tax preferences for families and home creation subsidies, the current government will refund a portion of personal income tax to parents raising children next year, he said.
On another subject, Hollik said Brussels would not compensate Hungarian businesses for paying European wages. Higher wages are made possible by the performance of the Hungarian economy, through the creation of a labour-based society and only if more and more people have jobs, which leads to growth and consumption, he said.
LIBE delegation head: Reservations from 2018 against Hungary still persist
Hollik said Gyurcsány and his party were in favour of a “united states of Europe” that would end Hungary’s sovereignty.
“For us, the EU is just a means to reaching our own national goals,” Hollik said, adding that this required a strong Europe made up of nation states, rather than “a new empire”.
In connection with a visit to Hungary by a delegation of the European Parliament’s civil liberties committee (LIBE) this week, Hollik said the delegation had included several liberal politicians “who constantly attack Hungary”. He said that although the EP’s rules of procedure prohibited MPs from the member state in question from being a part of such a visit, Momentum’s Anna Donáth had been part of the delegation.
“They should first follow their own rules before assessing the state of the rule of law in other countries,” Hollik said.
He said the delegation had turned down an invitation from the pro-government Civic Union Forum to a presentation on rule-of-law violations during the anti-government protests on October 23, 2006.
Read alsoHungarian FM Péter Szijjártó: Monopolising democracy is ‘antidemocratic’
Jobbik MEP Gyöngyösi: Hungarian opposition takes the initiative
Remarks from Jobbik MEP Márton Gyöngyösi:
We can safely say that Hungary has not been the country of unexpected political turns during the thirty years since the collapse of communism. Of course, this should not come a surprise as the high winner compensation that was incorporated into the electoral system for the sake of stability made the Hungarian elections a competition of large blocks even before 2010. And we all remember what happened after 2010: an unequal battle between Fidesz, a giga-party that uses state funds, and some small opposition forces constantly undermined by the big one. However, a couple of days ago all of this ended once and for all. The opposition has taken the initiative.
What we saw in the opposition primaries last week was the result of a long learning curve. Being cornered, bled out and even devastated through politically motivated fines by the incumbent Fidesz enjoying unlimited resources and the support of the state administration apparatus, the opposition parties began to realize even before the 2018 elections that they hardly had a chance to combat Viktor Orbán’s regime on their own. However, ideological differences and old habits proved stronger than political rationale. The result was yet another overwhelming Fidesz victory leading to the continuous deconstruction of democracy and the rule of law for four more years.
Opposition: Primaries only way to nominate credible candidates in 2022
Drifting away from the European Union, Hungary’s post-2018 political landscape became more and more similar to countries like Belarus. The opposition was fragmented and weak, so the governing Fidesz could do whatever they wanted. The political discourse completely lost its debating nature because the governing party felt no need to engage in a conversation with anyone outside its own circles. In the meantime, Fidesz continued occupying state institutions. The first crack in the regime’s wall came with the municipal elections in 2019, when centre-left, liberal and green parties, which had been fighting amongst each other as well, managed to achieve local agreements with the representatives of centre-right Jobbik to run joint candidates.
The cooperation was hugely successful: the opposition won district after district in major provincial cities and Budapest.
However, it was already clear back then that the real challenge lied in raising this cooperation to a national level for the parliamentary elections. While political differences could often be set aside in municipal elections for the sake of representing local issues, and local organizations were given a free rein to develop their own formula of cooperation, the parliamentary elections were a different story: the opposition had to come up with a united programme and list of representatives as well as a common set of rules to select the candidates for the single-member constituencies and, ultimately, the candidate for Prime Minister.
So the opposition parties decided to lay the final decision in the citizens’ hands by holding a primary election where each opposition party can run its candidate and then endorse the winner of the competition.
Hungarian opposition primary hacked by China?
Despite being a completely new concept in Hungary, the primary election was a great success. Why?
- The opposition could finally become the key player in the campaign and the implementation of the primaries. Parties with roughly equal resources had equal chances in terms of presenting themselves and their candidates. The agenda was not determined by Fidesz’ governing dominance, but the opposition parties themselves.
- The primary election campaign brought back some classic political methods that had long been gone from Hungary: candidates had actual debates with each other to demonstrate and contrast their positions. Since the competition was open-ended, no candidate could afford to avoid the debate or rely purely on logistics to win.
- The opposition became visible in areas where Fidesz had absolutely dominated the political discourse before. The primary election tents were set up and the performance of the local opposition candidates became the subject of discussion in such rural districts where the governing party had monopolized the discourse for ten years.
- The opposition managed to reinvigorate its own voters. Over 600 thousand citizens cast their ballots in the primaries, allowing the candidates to gain a lot of campaign experience and contacts, which will most likely come handy in the “live” elections next year.
In the meantime, Fidesz actually lost its ability to thematize the political discourse for a long time, and they couldn’t really compensate for this loss by constantly trying to present the opposition primaries as a deception and fraud. In fact, the governing party fell under pressure because many of its own voters could see that, in contrast with Fidesz’ stale politics and one-man control, there was an alternative public discourse where anyone with political aspirations had to enter into debates, have their positions challenged and, ultimately, enter the primaries to win the right to run as a candidate.
All of this is in stark contrast with Fidesz’ common practice where Viktor Orbán single-handedly selects the party’s candidates.
The changes this process triggered in Hungarian politics are clearly shown by how a Budapest candidate of the governing party which has been avoiding any contact with the opposition for eleven years, has already signed up for a debate with his opposition challenger. So not only did the primaries meet the expectations in the sense that the opposition is now able to run joint MP candidates with high legitimacy in 2022, thus making it a real competition, but the process also allowed Hungary’s political discourse to take a step towards normality in the European sense.
Of course, the greatest match is still coming up: to defeat Fidesz in April 2022. However, this goal seems to be closer than ever.
Public transport to become free for children under 14 in Pest county?
The opposition Párbeszéd party has submitted a proposal to parliament to making public transport free in Pest County for children under 14.
Párbeszéd’s Dávid Dorosz told an online news conference on Wednesday that the measure, which had been “a success” since it was introduced in Budapest on September 1, would “make life easier” for 120,000 children and tens of thousands of families in the county. The scheme
would cost 1.7 billion forints (EUR 4.8m), he said.
Widening the scope of eligibility would help the parallel development of Budapest and its suburbs, Dorosz, who is running for a parliamentary seat in Budapest’s 5th district, said.
Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony told the same press conference that voter turnout at the first two days of the opposition primary “has exceeded all expectations”.
Some 70,000 people voted on each of the first two days, he said.
The pre-election campaign has been “one of the noblest fights we have seen in recent Hungarian politics”, Karácsony said. The campaign needs candidates who can find common ground both with undecided and opposition voters, Karácsony said. He vowed to “bring hope and faith to undecided voters especially” if he is elected prime ministerial candidate.
Read alsoPublic transport to become free for children under 14 in Pest county?
Hungarian opposition primary hacked by China?
The background IT system collapsed in the first hours of the primary last Saturday. First, the opposition parties said that too many voters wanted to simultaneously use the system on Saturday. Later, they said that the Hungarian government was behind the system failure. Now, they are saying that the distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks came from China.
According to hvg.hu, the opposition primary continued today at 7 am. Dávid Bedő, a Momentum member of the national committee organising the primaries, said that the opposition parties and the organising aHang group ran many DDoS tests on Sunday. None of them harmed the system, so they cleared they were ready for the primaries to continue today.
First, the organisers said that too many voters wanted to simultaneously use the system on Saturday. Therefore, they added that what happened was
the “celebration of democracy”.
Later, they talked about a targeted cyber attack committed by the government. However, they did not show any evidence supporting their accusations. Meanwhile, the government or the government parties remained silent on Saturday. Fidesz reacted only on Sunday, saying that the opposition should not blame others for their errors.
The first round of the primaries will be between September 20 and 28, while the second round’s planned times are October 4-10. The original final date was September 26, 8 pm, regarding the first round, which was extended for 48 hours because of the system collapse.
Dávid Bedő said that the system ran in a different IT environment from today, so they could protect it from hackers. The organisers asked cyber security experts to
detect the source and method of the DDoS attack.
They include Ferenc Frész, senior cyber security expert of the Cyber Services Ltd. who used to work with NATO and the Council of the EU in similar projects.
Bedő said that harming the system was in the government’s interest, and they already knew that the attack could come from China.
Based on media reports, people
wait in long queues
in Budapest and the cities to vote in the primaries. However, in the countryside, opportunities to cast ballots is limited.
The primaries aim to choose the PM candidate of the six opposition parties and the opponents of Fidesz in the 106 constituencies.
Read alsoOpposition PM candidate Karácsony was not qualified to teach at Corvinus university?
The background IT system collapsed in the first hours of the primary last Saturday. First, the opposition parties said that too many voters wanted to simultaneously use the system on Saturday. Later, they said that the Hungarian government was behind the system failure. Now, they are saying that the distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks came from China.
According to hvg.hu, the opposition primary continued today at 7 am. Dávid Bedő, a Momentum member of the national committee organising the primaries, said that the opposition parties and the organising aHang group ran many DDoS tests on Sunday. None of them harmed the system, so they cleared they were ready for the primaries to continue today.
First, the organisers said that too many voters wanted to simultaneously use the system on Saturday. Therefore, they added that what happened was
the “celebration of democracy”.
Later, they talked about a targeted cyber attack committed by the government. However, they did not show any evidence supporting their accusations. Meanwhile, the government or the government parties remained silent on Saturday. Fidesz reacted only on Sunday, saying that the opposition should not blame others for their errors.
The first round of the primaries will be between September 20 and 28, while the second round’s planned times are October 4-10. The original final date was September 26, 8 pm, regarding the first round, which was extended for 48 hours because of the system collapse.
Dávid Bedő said that the system ran in a different IT environment from today, so they could protect it from hackers. The organisers asked cyber security experts to
detect the source and method of the DDoS attack.
They include Ferenc Frész, senior cyber security expert of the Cyber Services Ltd. who used to work with NATO and the Council of the EU in similar projects.
Bedő said that harming the system was in the government’s interest, and they already knew that the attack could come from China.
Based on media reports, people
wait in long queues
in Budapest and the cities to vote in the primaries. However, in the countryside, opportunities to cast ballots is limited.
The primaries aim to choose the PM candidate of the six opposition parties and the opponents of Fidesz in the 106 constituencies.
Opposition PM candidate Karácsony was not qualified to teach at Corvinus university?
Gergely Karácsony, the mayor of Budapest who is vying to become the opposition alliance’s candidate for prime minister, has insisted that his stint teaching at Budapest’s Corvinus University from 2004 had been with the university’s blessing, even though he did not possess the requisite foreign-language qualification and was not a doctoral candidate.
The daily Magyar Nemzet said on Wednesday that Karácsony, who co-heads the Párbeszéd party, did not dispute working at Corvinus in the absence of the necessary qualifications, but he blamed the university for the oversight. At a forum in Szentendre on Tuesday,
Karácsony told journalists that he had only earned 100,000 forints (EUR 285) a month at the university,
the same as a teaching assistant. The newspaper added, however, that after 2008, Karácsony had been employed as an assistant professor for four years and had certainly enjoyed a higher salary while not meeting the appointment criteria for the post.
The Education Office recently concluded an investigation which found that Corvinus had employed Karácsony illegally.
Three out of four voting-age Hungarians would like to see Ferenc Gyurcsány, the leader of the opposition Democratic Coalition, retire from politics, according to a fresh survey conducted this month by Nezopont Institute on the occassion of the 15th anniversary of the former Socialist prime minister’s infamous Őszöd speech. In the leaked speech in September in 2006,
Gyurcsány told the party group behind closed doors that they had lied about the state of the economy to win the general election.
Nézőpont said that the leaked speech had triggered “the biggest political crisis since Hungary’s democratic regime change” in 1989-1990. “It shows how much political damage the lies speech wreaked that a decade and a half later 75 percent of Hungarians want to see Gyurcsány disappear from public life,” Nezopont said, calling it “less surprising” that 83 percent of pro-government voters wanted the same. Two-thirds of leftist voters also said Gyurcsány should go, according to the survey published on Wednesday. This, it added, was “a warning signal” for the political left.
Nevertheless,
Gyurcsány’s “political talent” is such that “he has managed to put all relevant opposition parties together on a single party list” for next spring’s general election,
it added. Nézőpont’s phone survey was carried out between Sept. 6 and 8 with a representative sample of 1,000 adults.
Opposition party submits amendment proposal for referendum on Fudan campus
Opposition Párbeszéd has submitted to parliament an amendment proposal to the law governing referendums in Hungary with a view to changing a provision on deadlines, the party’s group leader said on Monday.
The amendment would scrap the provision which bans holding a national referendum within 41 days prior to a parliamentary election, Tímea Szabó told an online press conference. Párbeszéd submitted the motion with the aim of ensuring that a national referendum can be held before next spring’s parliamentary election on the issue of whether to prevent a property transfer to the planned campus of China’s Fudan University in Budapest.
Hungary’s National Election Committee approved last week a question submitted by the opposition mayor of Budapest for a referendum on Fudan University.
“But, if appeals are submitted to the committee’s decision, those will need to be evaluated by the Supreme Court, the Kúria,” Szabó said, adding that a referendum initiative would also have to go before parliament for a vote.
“These procedures with their timeframe and deadline rules would most certainly not allow for holding a national referendum until after the 2022 spring elections,” she said.
“If this were to be the case, it will be up to Hungarian voters to decide at next year’s ballot whether they support having a Chinese elite university be built with a 450 billion forint (EUR 1.3bn) Chinese loan, or a student city to accommodate students coming from outside the capital,”
Szabó said.
Read alsoNo Chinese university campus in Budapest? Green light given to referendum
Opposition: wage drop in Hungary is a sign of govt’s failed crisis management
Real wages have started to drop in Hungary for the first time in 12 months which “goes to show that the Fidesz-led government has failed in its pandemic-related crisis management efforts”, the co-leader of opposition LMP said on Friday.
“While gross average wages have increased by an annual 3.5 percent, inflation has risen to 5 percent over the past 12 months,” Máté Kanász-Nagy told an online press conference. He noted that the gross wage increase also included a one-off payment of HUF 500,000 (€ 1,435) to health-care workers.
In 2020, an average Hungarian household had a monthly net income of HUF 197,000 (€ 560), the politician said, adding that more than one million people were making minimum wage.
LMP’s programme includes guaranteeing everyone a steady income increase instead of distributing one-off payments as “a donation”, Kanász-Nagy said, adding that the wages of teachers and employees in the cultural and social sectors had stagnated over a long period of time.
The party promises to introduce a fairer tax policy including scrapping any tax on the minimum wage and reducing the tax on incomes up to 500,000 forints to 12 percent, the politician said.
- United opposition chanceless to defeat PM Orbán in 2022?
- Minister: ‘only thing Gyurcsány family loves more than lies is power’
On another note, Párbeszéd submitted an anti-graft proposal to the parliament. The opposition Párbeszéd party on Friday said it has submitted three proposals to parliament related to setting up an anti-corruption agency and protecting whistleblowers.
Párbeszéd’s bills include a constitutional amendment proposal on setting up an anti-corruption agency and one on the proposed agency’s regulations, Bence Tordai, the party’s deputy group leader, told on online press conference. The third proposal concerns the protection of whistleblowers exposing corruption, he said.
Passing these bills would allow Hungary to “rid itself of the oligarchs . sucking the life out of the Hungarian economy”, Tordai said.
The leader of the opposition Momentum Movement, András Fekete-Győr told the same press conference that some 1,000 billion forints’ (€ 2.87billion) worth of public funds were lost to corruption in Hungary each year.
If the opposition wins next year’s general election it will set up an anti-corruption agency and agree to Hungary joining the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO), Fekete-Győr said.
Read alsoHungarian Govt extends “state of crisis” due to recent upsurge of illegal migrants
No Chinese university campus in Budapest? Green light given to referendum
Hungarians will soon be given a chance to express their views on the government’s performance in a referendum, an opposition Socialist Party official said on Thursday, referring to the election committee’s recent approval of two referendum questions submitted by the opposition.
The National Election Committee (NVB) on Monday certified two out of five referendum questions submitted by Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony. If the opposition gathers enough supporting signatures, a referendum could be held on the issue of
whether to prevent property from being transferred to China’s Fudan University and on extending the eligibility period for jobless benefits.
Citing data from the Central Statistical Office, Imre Komjáthi, the Socialist Party’s deputy chairman, told an online press briefing that some 93,000 Hungarians had been out of work for 14 and a half months, noting that the jobseekers’ allowance expires after three months.
The number of people who have been without a job for over a year has increased by 20 percent compared with last August,
he added.
Komjáthi noted that his party called on the government multiple times to increase the jobless benefit to at least 100,000 forints (EUR 287) and extend its period of eligibility to nine months.
The people will make it clear in the referendum that they do not want China’s Fudan University to have a campus in Budapest and that they want the jobseekers’ allowance to be guaranteed for a period of nine months, Komjáthi said.
Read alsoOpposition PM candidate wants to cancel the Fudan project!
Opposition MPs call on Orbán cabinet to resign at Budapest demonstration
Opposition lawmakers held a demonstration in downtown Budapest late on Monday, accusing the government of spying on people “for thinking critically about the regime and asking critical questions”.
Referring to press reports that the Hungarian government may be behind the spyware hacks of the devices of hundreds of Hungarian journalists, politicians and other public figures using Israeli spyware, Anna Donáth, an MEP of the Momentum Movement, said: “We are living in a surveillance state”.
Gergely Arató of the Democratic Coalition said a government that spied on its own citizens was not conversant with European values. He said what was at stake in the 2022 general election was “Orban or Europe”.
Örs Tetlak of the Liberals said
“those responsible … should be held accountable and this government has to go.”
Dániel Kárpát Z of Jobbik said the fact that ruling party lawmakers boycotted a meeting of parliament’s national security council which abandoned earlier on Monday for the lack of a quorum was “tantamount to a confession of guilt.”
Socialist lawmaker Gergely Bárándy said
the Pegasus case was “another outrageous stage in the government’s ongoing efforts since 2010 to push Hungary closer to Eastern regimes.”
Dávid Dorosz of Párbeszéd said the government would “pay the price” for the scandal in next year’s election.
The demonstration started at the House of Terror Museum on Andrássy Street and marched to the Fidesz headquarters on Heroes’ Square, with the crowd carrying banners and signs, and the flags of opposition parties.
- read more news about Pegasus spyware scandal
Read alsoOpposition MPs call on Orbán cabinet to resign at Budapest demonstration
Opposition: the government is the reason of the weak forint
The Hungarian government and central bank governor György Matolcsy have failed to improve the competitiveness of Hungarian companies and have kept the forint weak, causing high inflation, the opposition Párbeszéd said on Friday.
Bence Tordai, the party’s deputy group leader, told an online press conference that Fidesz had funnelled development funding into
“the pockets of friends and the party’s clientele”.
Hungarian companies are now only able to compete with foreign counterparts by virtue of the weak forint, which in turn leads to high inflation, he said. At the same time, family and pensioner benefits have remained the same for the past 11 years, he said.
Meanwhile, climate change further raises the price of basic foodstuffs, he said.
After the “government change” in next April’s election, “those losing out on high inflation will be compensated,” Tordai said.
Opposition wants government to apologize because of inoculating with Sinopharm
The opposition Párbeszéd party has called on the government to apologise for the “unprofessional way” it introduced the Sinopharm vaccine and for “misleading people”.
In his radio interview on Friday, the prime minister tacitly admitted that opposition demands to make a third booster jab available had been warranted, the party’s deputy group leader, Sándor Burány, told an online press briefing. He said the minister of foreign affairs and trade had been responsible for giving Sinopharm vaccine the go-ahead in Hungary for “political reasons”, and the European Medicines Agency had not approved the jab at the time.
Hungary’s medicines authority gave emergency approval to Sinopharm.
Burány said people over the age of 65 in Hungary had come “under pressure” to accept the Sinopharm jab, whereas it was deemed inappropriate for over-60s in other countries.
He noted that when opposition politicians, citing the concerns of experts, asked the government to test recipients to determine whether Sinopharm had provided adequate protection, the government responded by accusing the opposition of being anti-vaxxers.
Tests carried out independently of the government do not paint a reassuring picture, he said, adding that Sinopharm’s efficacy in people over the age of sixty was “much weaker” than that of any other vaccine.
In a separate press conference, Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony called for a vaccination campaign targeting citizens over 60 who have received the Sinopharm vaccine. Karácsony urged “swifter, more active and more proactive” measures to administer booster jabs to elderly recipients, and called on the government to pledge not to give Sinopharm vaccines to people over 60.
Gergely Arató, the deputy group leader of the opposition Democratic Coalition, said Orbán’s announcement was an
“open confession that the government had put elderly people at risk by forcing the Sinopharm vaccine on them.”
The government information centre KTK said in response that half of Hungarians would have not received any kind of vaccination had it been up to the left wing to make decisions. “Had it been up to the left wing, Hungary would not be the most protected European country … and half of Hungarians would not have even been vaccinated,” the KTK said in a statement on Friday.
Expert: the 4th wave comes in September, people above 60 should get a third jab
Opposition prime ministerial candidates: Hungary’s future with EU
The prime ministerial candidates of the opposition parties on Tuesday sent a letter to the heads of European Union member states, saying Hungary should stay a member of the European Union after the general election in 2022.
In their joint statement Klára Dobrev of the Democratic Coalition and the Liberals, Andras Fekete-Győr (Momentum), Péter Jakab (Jobbik), Gergely Karácsony (Parbeszed, Socialists, LMP) and József Pálinkás (Új Világ Néppárt) said that
“At last week’s meeting of the Council of Europe, [Prime Minister] Viktor Orbán made it clear that he intends to lead Hungary out of the European Union”.
Opposition parties, on the other hand, understand clearly that Hungary has a future only as a member of the EU, they said in the statement.
The letter aims to show the signatories’ “strong determination” to keep Hungary in the European family of nations, they said. The country’s EU membership is also supported by the vast majority of its citizens, they said.
“Viktor Orbán has no mandate to drive a wedge between our country and the European Union, and he cannot make senseless proposals to dismantle or paralyse our common European institutions in the name of our people,” they said in the statement.
