Dialogue for Hungary (Párbeszéd Magyarországért)
Hungary to give its motorway system to concession for 35 years?
If the government’s plan to make Hungary’s motorways a concession materialises, Párbeszéd believes vignettes will become dearer and road conditions will worsen, a member of the opposition party’s leadership said at a press conference streamed on Facebook on Saturday.
Dávid Dorosz said the government wants to “slyly sell out” the country’s motorway system for a period of 35 years, which can “have only a negative effect on 99 percent of Hungarians,
based on international and Hungarian examples”, while “the Fidesz one-percenters get richer on the deal”.
Bence Tordai, the deputy head of Párbeszéd’s parliamentary group, said a request for information in the public interest had been submitted to determine who will be the recipient of the “hand over” of the motorway network.
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He said it was “frivolous” allowing a one-month deadline for a project of such a scale, adding that the concession winner “is already evident”, while Magyar Közút, which is in charge of motorway upkeep at present “is expected to be a consortium member”.
Tordai said the 35-year concession would raise state debt by 4-5 percentage points, “while Fidesz oligarchs get richer”.
In a statement issued in response to Párbeszéd’s remarks, the Government Information Centre said Ferenc Gyurcsány, Hungary’s former [Socialist] prime minister, had granted a 75-year concession to foreigners for Budapest’s international airport as well as a concession, to be paid in foreign currency, for the M6 motorway, which caused the Hungarian state “enormous losses”.
“Today, Ferenc Gyurcsány’s allies are protesting because the new concession tender is not in foreign currency, but in forints, thus Hungarians can bid, too. If they could, they would continue where they left off: handing over the country to foreign multinationals,” the centre said.
Read alsoBudapest traffic: is it worse than ever?
Here is the opposition PM candidates’ letter to Xi Jinping attacking the Chinese university in Budapest
Below you can read the full letter of the candidates’:
The Hungarian opposition’s PM candidates want nothing to do with the Chinese loan that would impose an enormous burden of hundreds of billions of HUF on Hungarian taxpayers, and all opposition PM candidates commit to immediately terminating the Fudan University project as well as the Budapest-Belgrade railway construction.
Acting on the initiative of the Mayor of Budapest, Klára Dobrev, András Fekete-Győr, Péter Jakab, Gergely Karácsony, Péter Márki-Zay and József Pálinkás wrote a joint letter to the President of the People’s Republic of China to inform Xi Jinping of their intentions.
Despite the difference between the political systems of the People’s Republic of China and Hungary, the Prime Ministerial candidates strive to continue the mutually beneficial cooperation between the two countries.
‘However, the recent events have unfortunately cast a shadow on the development of the multi-layered relations between the People’s Republic of China and Hungary.
European competitive multi-party parliamentary democracies require a broad political consensus to support large projects before the incumbent government could legitimately commit to any liability that is carried over to the next term.
We must state that the implementation of the Belgrade-Budapest railway and Fudan University’s Budapest campus projects under the present terms lack both the consensus of the Hungarian political forces and the support of the majority of the Hungarian public.
The rejection is largely due to the lack of transparency
in terms of the preparations for the two projects that are kept under a cloak of secrecy by the Hungarian government, while the representatives of the incumbent Hungarian government’s business circle have already shown up around the railway project which is at a more advanced stage of development’, the letter says.
The PM candidates state that no matter who is elected as the next Prime Minister of Hungary, they will act according to the obvious will of the majority of the voters and
immediately put a halt to the implementation of the Belgrade-Budapest railway and Fudan University’s Budapest campus
under the present conditions and therefore do not wish to use the loan that the current government requested for Hungary in the framework of these projects.
‘Nevertheless, we sincerely hope that the incumbent Hungarian government’s missteps in regards to the two projects and the unfortunate consequences thereof will not stop the further development of the multi-layered and traditionally good relations of our countries’, concludes the joint letter signed by Klára Dobrev, András Fekete-Győr, Péter Jakab, Gergely Karácsony, Péter Márki-Zay and József Pálinkás.
Gergely Karácsony presents most urgent actions of new 99 Movement programme
Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony on Saturday presented 18 points of his 99 Movement programme.
Karácsony, the prime ministerial candidate of the Párbeszéd, Socialist and LMP parties, said the first programme points contained measures that could be started immediately and implemented “relatively swiftly … to provide compensation for the past ten years”.
The programme would scrap the section of the Labour Code that provides for the possibility of 400 hours of overtime, known among the opposition and critics as the “slave law”, Karácsony said. They would also “write a new Labour Code together,” he said.
Regarding education, Karácsony called the lowering of the age limit of mandatory education from 18 to 16 years a “sin”, and said his government would create targeted programmes “for the youth pushed out of education”.
The autonomy of Hungarian tertiary education would be re-established and the new government “would do everything in its power to bring the Central European University back,” he said.
Local authorities would be reinstated as the oversight body of state-owned schools and the disparities between the funding of state-owned and church-owned schools will be remedied by raising the support for the former, he said.
Hungarian opposition’s primary debates will be held from July to October
The Fidesz government’s decisions stripping some religious organisations of their church status will be reviewed, he said.
“The crimes against Hungary’s rural areas will have to be remedied” and land privatisation laws reviewed, he said.
Of the “many things that should be remedied in the pension system”, Karácsony said his movement saw the plight of those receiving disability pensions as a priority.
Regarding steps to address the problems of the past year, Karácsony said they would fund the restart of SMEs which saw a substantial fall in revenues during the coronavirus epidemic. He also proposed that SMEs which suffered revenue losses above 50 percent should be exempt from paying social contributions.
Jobseekers’ allowances should be extended to nine months, Karácsony said.
Those who only received such an allowance for three months under the current legislation should be compensated, as well as those forced into taking sick leaves during the pandemic, he said.
Health-care and social workers would get a one-off wage subsidy of 500,000 forints (EUR 1,440) as a show of gratitude for their work during the pandemic, he said.
Karácsony said the Fidesz government had “punched an enormous hole” into local authorities’ operations by redirecting business tax and vehicle tax revenues during the state of emergency.
Karácsony calls for major changes to restore Hungary after successful regime change
Local councils could tax fortunes larger than 500,000,000 forints to recoup the resources, he proposed.
While many companies are fighting for survival after the pandemic, others have “grown amazingly” during the past years, Karácsony said.
The new government would introduce a “Mészáros tax” to exact contributions from those who have gained extra profits during the pandemic, he said.
Commenting on Karácsony’s presser, Fidesz communications director István Hollik said the programme contained “nothing new in comparison with the leftist programme dictated by Democratic Coalition leader Ferenc Gyurcsány.”
Karácsony and Gyurcsány “would bring back a politics of the past to which Hungarians have once rejected emphatically, because the left’s and Gyurcsány’s politics has already pushed Hungary to the brink of bankruptcy once,” he said.
Leftist programmes show that “Gyurcsány and the others” want to raise taxes, dismantle home creation programmes, scrap the reduction of utility fees and “to reinstate paid health care”, Hollik insisted.
Hungarian opposition’s primary debates will be held from July to October
The candidates of Hungarian opposition parties vying to become the opposition alliance’s prime ministerial nominee will hold primary debates from July 26 to Oct. 10.
The six parties involved have pledged to adhere to a common set of rules ahead of the 2022 general election, according to a statement issued jointly on Saturday by the Democratic Coalition, Jobbik, LMP, Momentum, the Socialists and Párbeszéd.
The statement said that holding open and transparent debates may serve as a prime guarantee of the feasibility of democracy in Hungary.
The statement emphasised the importance of holding fair primaries as this would set the standard by which the country was expected to be governed from the spring of 2022.
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Meanwhile, the Democratic Coalition (DK) and the Hungarian Liberal Party formed an election pact to support each other’s candidates in the primaries in several constituencies,
Klára Dobrev, DK’s prime ministerial candidate, and Anett Bősz, the Liberal leader, said on Facebook on Saturday.
Bősz said the parties had a “joint mission” to run for election with the best possible candidates in their bid to replace the Fidesz government.
“We can’t put up with the government further undermining freedom and the rule of law,” she said,
vowing to back Dobrev as “the fittest candidate to lead the Democratic Alliance” and defeat Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s “corrupt regime”.
Read alsoHungary leads the Council of Europe – here are the plans
Karácsony calls for major changes to restore Hungary after successful regime change
Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony, the Párbeszéd party’s candidate for prime minister in the opposition’s primary election, outlined his election platform on Saturday, saying that Hungary was in need of “change and making amends” so that “a better life is not a privilege of just the top one percent of society”.
The country should serve “the 99 percent rather than a few”, Karácsony said, underscoring the need for a Hungary in which “upward mobility is easier and it is more difficult to fall into poverty”.
Karácsony said the “restoration of democracy” should be coupled with “justice and making amends for the legal, moral, and material damage caused by the majority in the past more than one decade”.
Hungary needs “another dethronement to repair a damaged and sick democracy,” he said, adding that “the throne should be removed from Hungarian politics so that being in power will no longer mean reign but service”.
“What we need is not just a changing of the guard or a rematch, but real change, accountability and compensation rather than revenge,” the mayor said. He added that he would not accept “politics being equal to corruption, irresponsibility, and showing off”.
“We must leave divisions behind so that Hungary can be reunited,” Karácsony said.
After the pandemic, the country will need “more sustainable and more humane policies”, he said. “The future will either be green or there will be no future at all,” Karácsony said, calling for a greater focus on green and social issues.
Concerning the opposition primary election, Karácsony said candidates “should not be competing to see who has the biggest vocabulary to defame the government”, but rather to determine “who is able to keep together and reinforce the opposition alliance”.
“We’re not looking for a leader of the opposition, but a person to lead the whole country,” he said.
Karácsony said the opposition needed the contributions of conservatives and liberals alike to stop “the one percent that has now lost all checks and balances”, and proposed a “Movement 99” to promote a change in Hungary “not in place of the parties but alongside them”.
Karácsony said his movement already had the support of personalities such as former state secretary Jozsef Angyan, philosopher Janos Kiss, former central bank governor Peter Akos Bod, sociologist Zsuzsa Ferge and actor-director Robert Alfoldi. He added that the movement was drafting a programme that would establish the directions for “a cohesive society and the rule of law”.
Read alsoBreaking – Budapest mayor launches bid to challenge Orbán next year
Socialists support Karácsony to take on Orbán’s decade-long rule
We have just recently reported that Gergely Karácsony, Lord Mayor of Budapest announced his bid to become the prime minister candidate for Hungary’s six opposition parties which are trying to forge an alliance to take on Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in national elections next year.
Earlier this week, the Hungarian opposition said it would hold the
country’s first ever primary elections this year to pick joint candidates to contest the 2022 ballot, a move that could threaten Orbán’s more than decade-long grip on power.
The Socialist Party will support Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony for the opposition’s prime ministerial candidate in the opposition primary ahead of next year’s general elections.
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According to a statement sent to MTI on Saturday, the
Socialists and Karácsony’s allied Párbeszéd party see the mayor as a “young and modern” politician, who, as prime minister, would be a “committed supporter” of the Socialists’ programme.
The Socialists said that as prime minister, Karácsony could “rebuild the rule of law in Hungary” where “the press will again be free and the law will apply to all”. They also voiced hope that under a new government “everybody could prosper according to their talent and skills, the needy would get help as a matter of fact and social security would be a priority”.
Karácsony, they added, would devote close attention to the protection of natural assets and work to raise climate awareness and promote green energies.
Read alsoBreaking – Budapest mayor launches bid to challenge Orbán next year
This is how the opposition wants to defeat PM Orbán
Hungary’s opposition will hold the country’s first ever primary elections this year to pick joint candidates to contest the 2022 national election, six parties said on Wednesday, a move that could threaten Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s grip on power.
Hardline nationalist Orbán and his Fidesz party have scored three successive landslides since 2010 largely due to an election system that favours large parties as the opposition has been fragmented and unable to cooperate until now. But a patchwork of parties that includes the former far-right Jobbik, which has redefined itself as a centre-right grouping, as well as the Socialists, liberals and greens, upset Fidesz in municipal elections in 2019.
Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony, who as the candidate of a small green liberal party unseated the Fidesz incumbent in the biggest upset of those local polls, said the opposition cooperation may serve as a blueprint to unseat Orbán.
A first primary round on September 18-26 will select a single opposition candidate in each of Hungary’s 106 electoral districts.
Each district will also pick its preferred candidate for prime minister from a small selection of joint candidates.
There will be a runoff in the vote for the prime ministerial candidate on Oct. 4-10.
Opinion polls put Fidesz and the opposition coalition neck-and-neck and show Orbán’s party losing ground especially in large cities, foreshadowing the tightest election race since 2006. Orbán put the economy back on track after the 2008 financial crisis but has also curbed the judiciary, media and cultural freedoms, drawing criticism from the European Union. He has also
built cordial relations with Russia and China.
The election campaign is likely to be centred around the economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic. Hungary has
suffered the highest COVID-19 death toll per capita in the world,
Worldometer data shows, but it now also boasts one of the EU’s fastest vaccination campaigns that has allowed it to reopen the economy quickly.
Skyscrapers to be built in Budapest?
Since the election of the current mayor of Budapest, Gergely Karácsony, who is a member of the Dialogue for Hungary opposition party, the communication and relationship between the government and Budapest’s leadership has rather been all over the place. It seems like there is a disconnect between the two and there are several developments in which their opinions are in contrast to one another.
The most recent topics concern Hungarian higher education. The government has been transforming universities from state-run institutions to ones operated by foundations. This has sparked some debate, along with the possibility of the Chinese Fudan university establishing a campus in Budapest. This has sparked several questions about the competition, security, and the fact that it would possibly be built in an area of Budapest that has been reserved for a student city.
But this is not even the full list. According to Index, the latest point of conflict is a new
measure that, if entered into effect, would not allow the Budapest municipality to decide on the maximum height of the buildings in the so-called rust zones (rozsdaövezet).
The rust zones are “former industrial, economic, or abandoned and unused military areas that have been disused or underutilised, usually in a deteriorating physical condition and/or polluted”.
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The Socialists have expressed their concern on Facebook, showing a photograph of the MOL Tower, which is currently under construction, saying that even though they would want to create a greener Budapest, the government’s measures such as this one do not make it easy and might straight-up prevent it.
They are also concerned that the municipalities will soon lose even more of their power and influence over what can be done in their respective cities.
Hopefully, these debates will soon be resolved and the two parties will find a reasonable solution to the problem. Development is inevitable, but it is definitely important to preserve the beautiful façades that are so characteristic of the streets of Budapest.
Read alsoTake a look at the new plans for Budapest’s iconic Citadel – Photo Gallery
Opposition to refuse supporting state of emergency extension until fall
he opposition Democratic Coalition will not support a government proposal to extend the current special legal order connected to the coronavirus epidemic, the party’s spokesman said on Wednesday.
Balázs Barkóczi told an online press conference that the effect of the relevant government decree was going to expire on May 23 after it had been extended by 90 days in late February. In line with a new proposal submitted to parliament, it is planned to be extended until the 15th day following the start of the autumn session in parliament, he added.
DK believes that the sole purpose of the proposal is
DK believes that the sole purpose of the proposal is
to maintain the “government’s unlimited powers”,
the spokesman said, and called on the government to “address people’s real problems” such as deteriorating econonomic indicators and growing prices rather than “cementing its own powers”.
Meanwhile, opposition Párbeszéd said it submitted a draft resolution to parliament on increasing orphan support for children whose parents have died from Covid-19. Párbeszéd is proposing that
orphan support should be increased to at least 100,000 forints (EUR 277)
retroactively from Jan. 1 for children who lost a working age parent to coronavirus, Bence Tordai, the party’s deputy group leader, told an online press conference.
The party is also proposing a one-off “reverence contribution” of 500,000 forints for families who have lost someone to Covid-19, he said. Tordai also said that the jobseeker’s allowance should be doubled and the period of eligibility for it should be extended to nine months.
He also called on the government to
“repeal measures that have made access to health care stricter”
and to introduce a so-called crisis managing basic income. Also, public employees should be earning the minimum wage and store and business owners should receive financial support to help them reopen, he added.
Hotbed of a fourth wave? Opposition wants schools to remain closed
Six opposition parties issued a joint statement calling on the government to withdraw a decision to reopen schools and kindergarten next Monday.
The Democratic Coalition (DK), Jobbik, LMP, Momentum, the Socialists and Párbeszéd said on Friday that the cabinet decision on reopening would threaten several hundred thousand children attending kindergarten and school, as well as parents and teachers during the third and most dangerous wave of the coronavirus epidemic. Reopening kindergartens and schools before teachers are fully protected will
greatly increase the risk of the virus spreading
and parents who have not been vaccinated yet will be in increased danger, the statement added.
They criticised a proposal by state secretary for education Zoltán Maruzsa who said that
concerned parents could ask for a permission from their children’s headmasters to continue home schooling.
The opposition parties said this way Prime Minister Viktor Orbán was transferring responsibility to teachers and parents. Considering the high number of infections and deaths, the government should make a decision to maintain online education, the parties said.
Hungarian opposition says registration is a barrier to many who want the vaccine
Hungary’s opposition parties and the mayor of Budapest have proposed doing away with the registration requirement for getting a Covid-19 vaccine with a view to speeding up and expanding inoculations.
Hungarians should be eligible for a vaccine by presenting a social security (TAJ) card after consulting with their GP, the Socialist Party, the Democratic Coalition, Jobbik, LMP, Momentum and Párbeszéd said in a joint statement on Saturday.
They said the government should organise vaccinations for non-registered people in places like stadiums and involve local councils in the vaccination campaign.
Scrapping the registration requirement could significantly increase the number of those who ask to get the shot, they argued. “Now is not the time to fight political battles, but to consider the interests of the country and the Hungarian people,” the statement said.
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Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony said on Facebook that local councils were able and willing to help the government with vaccinating those who are not registered but want the jab.
“In the current dramatic pandemic situation, stadiums should be used for conducting mass vaccinations rather than [soccer] games in front of capacity crowds,” the mayor said.
Additionally, in one of our previous articles, we have written that NGOs also launched a campaign for the Roma with the slogan “Vaccinate so you can live!”. They said, that in their experience, people living in poorer, isolated settlements are less willing or able to register for vaccinations. They also want to help the process with an animated short film released on Friday explaining how to create an email address and how to register for the vaccination. They aim to provide in-person assistance as well.
Read alsoHungary to reopen fully in June?
Facebook to inhibit Hungarian politicians from reaching users?
Hungary’s government and many ruling party politicians have seen a significant decline in the reach of their Facebook pages since Thursday, a government official has said. Leading opposition politicians experienced the same, and for a short while, a “grand coalition” was formed against the suspected new policy of the American tech giant. Finally, the truth has been revealed.
“We’re baffled by what has happened,” Csaba Dömötör, a state secretary of the Prime Minister’s Office, said on Facebook, adding that Facebook had not said anything in advance about any changes. “We don’t know if a technical problem is to blame or if Facebook has begun to limit the reach of political content like it said it would,” Dömötör said.
The state secretary said the matter
The state secretary said the matter
highlighted how public figures were “at the mercy” of tech companies when it came to communication.
Dömötör said the limited reach of the government’s pages was “especially disadvantageous” now when it was so critical to keep Hungarians informed about the status of the pandemic and vaccines.
Opposition politicians felt the same and encouraged all their supporters to keep following them by instructing them carefully on how to do so. Facebook announced in February that they plan to scale down political content. Therefore, everybody thought that the new measure arrived in Hungary in the last few days.
However, according to hvg.hu, the significant decline in the reach of Hungarian politicians’ Facebook pages was not intentional on the part of the American tech giant. The social media platform said Friday night that the cause was a simple technical error. A spokesperson of Facebook said that the problem occurred in many European countries, but they already managed to fix it.
On Friday, leading Hungarian politicians like MEP Anna Donáth (Momentum Movement), Csaba Dömötör (Fidesz), András Fekete-Győr (Momentum), István Hollik (Crhistian Democrats), and Gergely Karácsony (Lord Mayor of Budapest) voiced their concerns regarding the issue.
Nevertheless, the events show how important Facebook is for political communication in Hungary.
Hungarian opposition party alliance urges everybody to get vaccinated – VIDEO
The alliance of opposition parties encouraged everyone to get vaccinated against the coronavirus in a video posted on Facebook on Monday.
Ágnes Kunhalmi, the Socialists’ co-chair, pressed every Hungarian to get their Covid jabs. “This is the only way we’ll beat the coronavirus and get our lives back,” she said.
Momentum leader András Fekete-Győr said the responsibility for what has happened in Hungary during the pandemic lies with the Orbán government, with its “unrestricted power”. “Fidesz is to blame for more than 4,000 health-care workers leaving hospitals at the peak of the pandemic,” he added.
Parbeszed co-leader Tímea Szabó said Prime Minister Viktor Obán is to blame for the number of Covid deaths, relative to population, reaching global highs in Hungary. Instead of taking speedy and efficient measures to slow the spread of the virus, she said “universities were privatised under the cover of night, and hundreds of billions were shoveled into the pockets of cronies, into private foundations, into sport, into the Dubai world expo or into [Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt] Semjén’s hunting exhibition”.
LMP co-head Máte Kanász-Nagy said
“the Orbán government and its strawmen profited during the pandemic” as money flowed into “foundations slurping up public funding, the hunting expo, and hobby football in Felcsut, while more than 20,000 Hungarian families were touched by tragedy”.
Jobbik chairman Péter Jakab said doctors and nurses had “asked in vain for assistance as hundreds of thousands ended up on the streets, children were orphaned and businesses declared bankruptcy en masse”.
“Even Viktor Orbán and his government cannot take away from us the opportunity to encourage people to get vaccinated,” Democratic Coalition head Ferenc Gyurcsány said at the close of the video.
“The opposition party alliance asks everybody to get vaccinated,” he added.
Responding to the video in a statement sent to MTI, governing Fidesz said left-wing parties continue to collect signatures against the Chinese and Russian Covid vaccines.
Fidesz said that while left-wing parties are talking others out of getting inoculated, their politicians “are lining up to get jabs”.
Fidesz added that one of the left-wing’s local government representatives, who didn’t accept the available Chinese vaccine, then got sick and died, was “the victim of the irresponsible campaign” of left-wing parties.
“Without Eastern vaccines, one million fewer people would be inoculated in Hungary because of the slow pace of Brussels’ vaccine deliveries,” Fidesz said.
Fidesz asked left-wing parties to “cease their collection of signatures against vaccines and their rash slandering of hospitals and clinics”.
Read more news about Hungary’s joint opposition for 2022
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Read alsoHungarians identify themselves as pro-right? – Civitas Institute Poll
Hungarians identify themselves as pro-right? – Civitas Institute Poll
Civitas Institute Poll about the 2022 Hungarian election
With only one year to go until the Hungarian parliamentary election, opposition forces are still shaping up to offer a competitive contender to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his ruling Fidesz party. Civitas Institute experts share the latest opinion poll data related to the 2022 Hungarian general election.
The latest Civitas Institute poll figures show that, in general, the Hungarian society leans right. 42% of Hungarian voters have identified themselves as right-wing, while one-fifth (19%) of the respondents said they were left-wing supporters. About four in ten (39%) did not or could not answer to the question related to ideology.
Not surprising is the fact, that three in four Fidesz voters (73%) support right-wing positions, with only 4% of them leaning left. The united opposition, including leftists, liberals and conservatives, offers ideologically a much more colourful composition of voters. Four-in-ten of opposition supporters tend toward the left (40%), with 19% supporting right-wing ideology. The largest chunk of the respondents supporting the united opposition (41%), however, did not or could not respond to the question about the ideological preference.
Voting intention
The Civitas Institute voting intention numbers show that Fidesz is maintaining a wide lead over other parties with 54%, while the six parties of the united opposition combined have 40%. In comparison, the vote share Fidesz received at the last parliamentary election in 2018 was 49.6%.
Within the opposition, Jobbik has a comfortable lead with 14%, Democratic Coalition (DK) and Momentum sharing the second place with both 9% of the vote share.
Elsewhere, the Socialists (MSZP) are at 3%, the LMP 2%, and Párbeszéd has 1% of the vote. The far-right Our Homeland Movement, not being part of the united opposition, is at 3%.
Perception of parties
The Civitas Institute Poll gives an overview of how political parties are perceived by the Hungarian voters
When it comes to party perception, Fidesz is viewed the most positive (46%) and less negative (44%) party in the eyes of Hungarians, with a net score of -1 point. From the opposition forces, Momentum has the most advanced net score with -23 points. The liberal party counts with the sympathy of almost every fourth voter (24%), at the same time being negative in the eyes of every second voter (51%).
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Jobbik is currently perceived the most positive opposition party with 28%, counting with a rejection of 56% of the voters. DK, led by former prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsány, enjoys the sympathy of 21% of the voters, while six-in-ten of them having a negative attitude toward his party.
The Hungarian Socialist Party, one of the most dominant actors in Hungarian politics until 2010, is rejected by almost two-thirds (65%) of the voters, having a sympathy index of 15%.
Who should face Viktor Orbán?
Although the exact rules for the opposition primaries for the prime ministerial candidate continue to be unknown, it is very likely that the first two or three candidates of Round 1 would face each other in a knockout phase.
When opposition voters are asked who they would pick for the opposition prime ministerial candidate, about one in two (50%) say they will either vote for Jobbik candidate Péter Jakab, or Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony, who officially still has not announced his candidacy.
Péter Jakab receives 27% of the vote share and has a slight edge over Gergely Karácsony, who receives 23%. DK candidate Klára Dobrev comes in third place with 15% support, ahead of Hódmezővásárhely Mayor Péter Márki-Zay (11%) and Momentum leader András Fekete-Győr (10%).
The current figures of the prime ministerial candidates would secure both Péter Jakab and Gergely Karácsony a spot in Round 2 of the primaries, with a possible third option still in limbo between the other three candidates.
This CATI survey was conducted from 5 March to 11 March 2021 with 1007 randomly selected eligible voters who were polled about certain political questions, while opposition voters were then asked about certain issues related to the primaries. The minor sample selection bias occurring in the randomization of the population sample was corrected by the combined method of cell weighting and raking (RIM weighting) by gender, age, municipality type, regional distribution and education, using the data of the Y2016 Microcensus and the Central Statistical Office’s (KSH) Municipality Level Data (T?STAR database). After weighting, the key demographic variables are identical with the expected distributions and the measurement uncertainty of the basic distributions is +/-3.2 per cent.
Did the Hungarian government really violate its constitution?
A board member of opposition Párbeszéd has turned to the Constitutional Court over a government regulation which the party says is restricting the right to assembly “using the coronavirus pandemic as an excuse”.
Speaking at an online press conference on Saturday, Gábor Erőss, also a deputy district mayor in Budapest, referred to a regulation introduced under the special legal order by the government last November which bans demonstrations.
He said he had prepared the appeal he submitted to the top court on the basis of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee’s legal complaint over the government regulation banning any demonstration without allowing even the option of filing a request for permission to authorities.
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Erőss noted that Párbeszéd had sought to organise a demonstration in protest against the “privatisation” of universities, “government graft” and the “robbing of local governments of their funds”, among other issues.
“The government has not allowed any kind of demonstration to be held since November, not even those at which social distancing and mask-wearing rules would have been observed,” he said.
He said that “the right to assembly is one of the most important fundamental constitutional rights which is guaranteed … even by the Basic Law adopted by two-thirds of MPs of [ruling] Fidesz”, adding that the party was asking the top court “to give people back the freedom of assembly”.
Opposition parties unanimously scold Hungarian govt for bad crisis management
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s management of the coronavirus crisis “has not only been a failure”, but it “has also created such chaotic conditions that have brought Hungary’s health-care system to ruin”, the opposition parties said in a joint statement on Saturday.
The Socialist Party, Jobbik, the Democratic Coalition, Párbeszéd, LMP and the Momentum Movement accused the prime minister and his government of “trying to shift the blame for their failures” to the unpredictable nature of the pandemic, Brussels and US financier György Soros.
“But nobody can explain how a government that has granted itself unlimited power can create a situation in the middle of a global pandemic that leads to 5,500 doctors and other health-care staff quitting the field,” they said.
The parties said “this act of severe irresponsibility is more than just a simple failure on the government’s part”, insisting that the government had committed “a crime against the Hungarian people”.
They added that it was “also shocking” that the government had decided to empty “and eventually close down” a hospital for homeless people in downtown Budapest.
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“The government has had time for every unnecessary thing, except for preparing the public and the health-care system for the second and third waves of the pandemic,” the statement said.
“Every single measure aimed at curbing the pandemic was introduced three to four weeks too late, which, tragically, gave the virus a massive lead.”
The statement said millions of Hungarians had been left to fend for themselves, receiving “nothing more than platitudes spouted on public television”, billboard ads and “false promises”.
The parties called on the government to provide “targeted financial assistance” to all who need it.
They vowed to continue convening the so-called Covid 2021 assessment committee evaluating the government’s performance during the pandemic.
March 15 – Opposition calls for ‘peace, liberty and concord’ in joint message
Hungary’s opposition parties posted a joint message titled “Let there be peace, liberty and concord!” on their Facebook pages on the occasion of the March 15 national holiday, citing the 12-point list of demands of the Hungarian revolutionaries of 1848.
Speaking first in the video, Ágnes Kunhalmi, co-leader of the Socialist Party, said the past 173 years showed that every generation in every society must again and again fight for democracy.
Máté Kanász-Nagy, the co-leader of LMP said that “when the nation is not free, what matters is not what makes us different from each other but what connects us”.
“Our common task now is to set aside our minor disagreements and differences so that together we can take up the gauntlet thrown before us,” Párbeszéd MP Bence Tordai said.
Anna Orosz of Momentum said that in the future of Hungary there was no place for censorship, silenced newspapers or radio broadcasters because where the press is not free, the nation cannot be free either.
“We will not be free without an independent judiciary, prosecutor’s office and police,”
MEP Márton Gyöngyösi of Jobbik said, adding that everyone should be equal and nobody should be above the law.
Párbeszéd co-leader Tímea Szabó called for a society based on solidarity and equal opportunities, where the state provides for everyone.
“We will build a country where honest work is rewarded, and thieves and fraudsters are driven out,” said Socialist Party co-leader Bertalan Tóth.
“Where being European does not only mean that we live on this continent but also that we are not worth less than any other European, whether it’s about our pay, our pension, our schools or our hospitals,” said Olga Kálmán, on behalf of the Democratic Coalition.
In conclusion, András Fekete-Győr, the head of Momentum said:
“We want a Hungary that is home to the whole nation, not just some. A country where we have debates and we will not agree on everything, but we believe that we can only write the country’s future together.”
Fidesz house speaker fines opposition politician over 22 thousand EUR for a video
Parliamentary Speaker László Kövér has fined Bence Tordai, deputy of opposition Párbeszéd, over 8.2 million forints (EUR 22,370), an equivalent of four months’ salary, in a disciplinary procedure.
During a session of parliament on March 1, Tordai attempted to make video footage, “rushed after Finance Minister Mihály Varga and blocked his way when the minister wanted to return to his seat”. Tordai also disobeyed the house speaker, who “positively instructed” him not to follow the minister into the lobby.
Tordai “deliberately obstructed a participant of the session in his free movement”,
Kövér said in his justification to the fine. He said that Tordai was a notary of parliament, whose responsibilities included “respecting and enforcing house rules and protecting the reputation of parliament, adding that it was the fourth occasion Tordai was violating house rules in the current parliamentary cycle.
Tordai will have eight days upon receiving the decision to file an appeal with parliament’s immunity committee.
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As we reported before, the Hungarian parliament approved stricted fines against MPs violating the rules in 2019 December.
Two new disciplinary elements were included in the new law,
one concerning those that blatantly disturb MPs’ speeches or the presiding chair’s activities. The other concerns cases when the progress of the session is disturbed or prevented and MPs or other officials are disturbed and prevented from exercising their rights and fulfilling their obligations.
If an MP neglects the presiding chair’s repeated warnings, then the law will oblige him or her to leave the session immediately and failing to do so, more serious measures or expulsion may be applied. In cases involving physical violence or threats, the term of expulsion could range between 24 sittings or 60 calendar days.
The new law will also introduce increased fines against violators.
Ruling Fidesz group leader Máté Kocsis earlier said that as a general rule, applicable fines will increase by 12-fold. The amendment includes restrictions on MPs’ right to enter state offices. It will remain mandatory for state bodies to help lawmakers fulfil their duties but the lawmakers will be expected to indicate in advance that they request information from state bodies or public institutions, he added. Kocsis, who was one of the initiators, said that the amendment was prompted by recent cases of “unparalleled crudeness” and noted that the behaviour of some “wilder” opposition lawmakers had been unacceptable.