Együtt-Dialogue for Hungary

EP Elections – Bajnai Calls EP Ballot Milestone In Left’s Renewal

Budapest, May 20 (MTI) – Determining the role that Hungary’s various leftist parties will play in he renewal of opposition politics will also be at stake at the upcoming European parliamentary elections, E-PM list leader Gordon Bajnai said in an interview published in daily Nepszabadsag today.Hungary needs lawmakers in Brussels who, if necessary, stand up for the country’s interest against its government, he said.

He said it was Hungary’s priority interest to improve the utilisation of EU money for development and farming in order to create 300,000 new jobs in the next financial period.

Bajnai expects two candidates to be successful on the party’s list.

Photo: MTI – Zsolt Czegledi

E-PM Receives Land Tender Docs After Winning Court Ruling

Budapest, May 19 (MTI) – E-PM has received the nearly 200 assessments of state land tenders it requested back in 2012, lawmaker for the party, Rebeka Szabo, told a news conference today.

Szabo said she would soon publish the documents on the internet.

She said she had filed a request to access the assessment sheets in spring 2012, but her request had been turned down by the National Land Management Fund (NFA). She then took the NFA to court and won the right to access the documents in a ruling.

Szabo said the case was likely to create a precedent and she called for all bids in state land tenders to be made public along with their assessments in the future.

The exact text of the tenders is still not publicly available, but the next step should be to make their publication compulsory, too, Szabo said.

The authorities have investigated suspected signature forgeries in connection with bids for state land, and Szabo earlier alleged that ruling Fidesz party officials had been given preferential treatment.

Photo: parbeszedmagyarorszagert.hu

E-PM Calls For Left Renewal

Budapest, May 12 (MTI) – Left-leaning policies in Hungary need renewal, Together-PM co-chair Peter Juhasz said on Monday, and insisted that the aim of “ousting the Orban-regime” was not a sufficient goal.

Juhasz noted that the upcoming European parliamentary elections would offer an opportunity for parties to test their support individually as opposed to the Hungarian general election in April when leftist parties formed an alliance, and called on voters to participate and cast their ballot for Together-PM.

Marton Benedek, a founder of Together, said that his party wished to represent Hungarian interests in a transparent way, and suggested it was contrary to the government’s practice, which he said had led to the EU’s suspending funds for Hungary.

Egyutt 2014 (Together 2014) was founded by former PM Gordon Bajnai in 2013, signaling his return to political life. It has cooperated with a splinter group of green LMP called Dialogue for Hungary (PM). Bajnai is placed first on the party’s EP list.

Photo: MTI – Lajos Nagy

 

Hungary’s New Parliament Elects Orban PM, Opposition Lawmakers Vote “No”

(MTI) – Hungary’s new parliament re-elected Viktor Orban, the leader of the election-winning Fidesz party, as prime minister on Saturday.

Orban was elected with 130 votes in favour and 57 against.

Orban was supported by lawmakers of the co-ruling Fidesz and the Christian Democrat parties, nayes came from the Socialists, radical nationalist Jobbik, green LMP, E-PM, and one independent MP.

The Socialists do not wish to be party to Hungarian parliament acting as smoke screen for party politics, the party’s leader Attila Mesterhazy said. Mesterhazy criticised the government for failing to provide information on a government programme, the new government structure or its members. He added that no opportunity has been provided to make comments after the prime minister’s speech. “Under such circumstances it is not worth listening to the prime minister’s speech, as no more than bio-props” he said.

Peter Konya, a senior official of the E-PM party alliance, told a press conference that Orban had not published any platform in his election campaign other than “we shall continue”. He added that this was not something that E-PM supports. He said E-PM opposed retroactive legislation, more poverty for Hungarians, stealing their private assets, raising Hungary’s energy dependence and demolishing the system of checks and balances. He added that E-PM calls on Orban to immediately suspend talks on the Paks nuclear plant upgrade, as the contract on Paks will make Hungary dependent on a country which is “at war” in a neighbouring country, where the safety of ethnic Hungarians is also at risk.

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Green LMP said that it was not the prime minister but the people who will decide whether the government’s actions are questionable. The party said Hungary will have a government with no chance for accountability. The supermajority got rid of the obligation of presenting a government programme and there is no chance for opposition lawmakers to comment on Orban’s speech in parliament, a statement by the party’s two co-leaders said.

“The slogan ‘We shall continue’ is a threat rather than a promise”, the statement said.

The four lawmakers of the opposition Democratic Coalition were not present at the vote. The Democratic Coalition will in the coming four years work towards ousting the “regime”, the party said in a statement. Orban talked about optimism and ambitions to become a middle power, but Hungary is “under the authority of corrupt mediocrity and undiscriminating servility”, it added. Fully four million people are trying to survive at subsistence level and half of the youth want to leave the country. The level of state debt is at an unprecedented high, it said.

Gabor Fodor, the leader of the opposition Liberal Party, said he would not vote for Orban’s re-election, adding that it is still not known what programme his government planned to carry out.

Radical nationalist Jobbik said Orban’s speech lacked any concrete social or economic manifesto. Party leader Gabor Vona asked Orban to go along with Jobbik’s political programme of providing a decent living, public order and taking those responsible to account. Vona asked Orban to abandon his “double behaviour” of playing a freedom fighter at home and supporting the vision of the United Europe in Brussels at the same time. Vona said his party would be a constructive opposition. He added that the Socialists leaving the chamber during the prime minister’s speech was “pathetic and naive”.

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orban-re-elected-1With the vote, the prime minister entered office and took his oath

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President Ader congratulated the re-elected Prime Minister

Orban began his third term as prime minister at the helm of his centre-right government after cycles between 1998-2002 and 2010-2014.

Photo: MTI

E-PM To Turn To CCourt, Ombudsman For Referendum On Paks Expansion

Budapest, May 8 (MTI) – The opposition E-PM party will appeal to Hungary’s Constitutional Court and the ombudsman and do its utmost to enforce a referendum on the expansion of the Paks nuclear plant, the party’s co-chair said today.

An initiative for a popular vote was lodged by Javor and party co-leader Viktor Szigetvari after Hungary signed an agreement with Russia on upgrading the plant with two new blocks on January 14.

Under the agreement Russia is lending Hungary 10 billion euros at variable rates of 3.95-4.95 percent interest to cover 80 percent of the project’s costs, which Hungary is set to repay in euros.

The question E-PM wants put to voters is: “Do you agree that the new reactor blocks should not be built in Hungary using a loan which inflates the public debt?”

The Kuria, Hungary’s supreme court, on Wednesday upheld a decision by the National Election Committee (NVB) ruling out a referendum on the expansion of the Paks nuclear power station.

The Kuria said in a statement on its website that it had rejected a petition against the committee’s decision on the basis that the country’s fundamental law bars holding a popular ballot on agreements deriving from obligations set forth in an international accord.

Photo: www.mszp8.hu

EP Elections – Voters To Decide Who Leads Opposition Alliance, Says Bajnai

(MTI) – Voters at the European Parliamentary election will not only decide who should represent Hungarian interests in Europe but also who should lead the opposition alliance in the upcoming period, E-PM leader Gordon Bajnai said on Saturday.

Bajnai told the party alliance’s EP programme event that new plans are being drawn up because the recent parliamentary election has shown that voters reject “rebranded political products” and bad compromises. Instead of a “least bad choice” they want true renewal, with new politics, a new team and a new organisation, he added.

The EP election will represent a milestone in this process of renewal, he said.

Bajnai, who heads the EP list of E-PM, said that voters must not be forced to take false choices and cited the alliance’s slogan “I am Hungarian and European.” It is not necessary to choose between one’s home country and progress because both should be supported, he added.

He called the EU policies of Fidesz and radical nationalist Jobbik hypocritical. Fidesz has announced a war of independence against Brussels but still pockets EU support, while Jobbik campaigns by calling for European wages and rights, while they encourage the burning of EU flags, he added.

Photo: MTI

Parliament To Have 15 Committees

Budapest, April 25 (MTI) – Hungary’s next parliament will have 15 committees, Fidesz lawmaker Antal Rogan announced.

Under an agreement reached during preparatory talks on Friday, parties of the opposition will delegate heads to five committees.

alak-roganRogan said the ruling parties (Fidesz-KDNP) had been “restrained and generous” in the negotiations, adding that the opposition parties had been given a higher number of positions on various committees than justified by the size of their parliamentary groups.

The new parliamentary structure could be officially set up at the assembly’s first session on May 6.

alak-mesterhazyThe committees agreed upon by representatives of the new assembly’s political parties are acceptable for the Socialist Party, its leader Attila Mesterhazy told a press conference after preparatory talks on Friday. The Socialists will delegate a deputy speaker and two notaries to the next assembly, and a vice president to the Inter-Parliamentary Union. The national security and budget committees will also be chaired by Socialist lawmakers, Mesterhazy said. Mesterhazy noted that the national security committee usually went to the largest opposition party. Based on what was said during the talks, Mesterhazy assumed that parliament in the future would retain its shcedule of weekly sessions.

Gabor Vona, leader of the radical nationalist Jobbik party, which had also claimed the post, told reporters on leaving the talks earlier that scandals associated with the Socialists make them unfit for the post. Vona also said that the committees would include one in charge of employment policy and job creation, which the ruling parties had agreed to set up “under pressure” from the opposition parties. Apart from this business promotion committee, Jobbik will also chair the cultural committee. The deputy chairman of Jobbik said a compromise was needed on the issue of membership of the parliamentary committees, and for this reason Jobbik had given way on the chairmanship of the national security committee, which it had originally wanted.

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Zoltan Balczo (Jobbik) told a news conference after Friday’s preparatory session that the fact that lawmakers from all the parties had managed to agree on the structure of the committees and their membership had been the “greatest outcome” of the talks. He said Jobbik was pleased to have received the chairmanships of the employment committee and the education and culture committee. He noted that Jobbik would have six deputy chairman posts.

The opposition LMP party will chair the sustainable development committee.

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LMP co-leader Andras Schiffer said LMP would file a minority report to the agreement on the structure of the committees, committee memberships and the names of two committees. Schiffer called Friday’s negotiations “surprisingly constructive”, but there had been disagreements over several issues. Parties, he argued, should be allowed to address parliament even before the new government is formed. Another issue is whether LMP should have more than five committee seats, but Schiffer said the other parties had stood firmly against this. The third issue is that LMP, together with other opposition parties, would like the cultural committee to also bear the name “education”.

The opposition E-PM is inviting all parties that have lists for the upcoming European Parliamentary election to a public debate, the party’s co-chair, Benedek Javor, said on Friday. Javor, who occupies second place of the E-PM list, told a press conference that voters will only be able to make a responsible decision on May 25 if the parties clearly present their ideas for how Hungary and Europe should interact and how they would spend the tens of billions of forints in EU support.

Javor said Jobbik candidates are also welcome to the debate because E-PM believe their arguments would be “swiped off the table through debate and reason.” E-PM said in the statement they hoped the parties would start related coordination talks next week.

Photo: MTI

EP Elections – E-PM sees vote as chance to improve on April results

(MTI) – The European parliamentary elections are a chance for the opposition E-PM party alliance to improve on its results at the April general election, Gordon Bajnai, the alliance’s leader, said on Saturday.

Bajnai told a campaign-opening event in Budapest that he would “fight in the campaign as if it was for his life” and asked everyone else involved to do the same.

He said it appeared that the same bad governance would continue in Hungary which would lead to impoverishment, isolation and docility, Bajnai said.

Bajnai said there was no reason to blame the Unity alliance of leftist parties for the election failure, because it was “with a conscious mind” that E-PM had entered the group. He added that for E-PM to rejuvenate, it must go back to “square one”, which, in their case, was the October 23, 2012 where Egyutt (Together) was formed at an anti-government rally.

He said because it was running by itself in the May European elections, it would give E-PM a chance to truly voice its views about Hungary and Europe without any compromises.

“There will be something to vote for, not just against,” he insisted.

Photo: MTI

Election 2014 – E-PM leader Bajnai to return mandate

Budapest, April 9 (MTI) – Gordon Bajnai, the leader of the opposition E-PM party, said today he would return his mandate and not sit in Hungary’s next parliament.

The ex-premier won a mandate in the second place of the joint national list of five opposition parties in the general election on April 6.

Bajnai told an informal press roundtable that he would formally take up his mandate, but then return it, and it would then be given to a fellow E-PM candidate. This procedure is important because if he did not receive his mandate formally, the seat would go to the next-in-line on the joint five-party list, in this case, to Timea Muller Szabo, representing the Socialist Party.

Asked about the reason for his decision, Bajnai said in his view, the main “stage” of opposition actions would in future be outside parliament. He added he could better serve his E-PM party away from parliament. Bajnai said no final decision had been made yet as to who would get his mandate from E-PM.

Photo: MTI

Election 2014 – Opposition Suspects Vote Rigging In Swing Districts

Budapest, April 2 (MTI) – The left-of-centre Unity alliance suspects potential vote rigging, insisting that the number of voters in swing constituencies has grown in the past two months.

Gergely Karacsony, a Dialogue for Hungary (PM) politician, told a news conference today that whereas the number of people with the right to vote had declined by 40,000 overall over the past two months, the number of “tourist voters” — namely people registered at a new address close to the election — had swelled in 12 voting districts where the outcome is up for grabs. These swing constituencies are mainly in Budapest, he added.

Socialist lawmaker Gergely Barandy told the same news conference that it was likely that ruling party Fidesz had organised the transfers. He said the governing party was luring innocent people into an illegal action, since registering at a fictional address is forgery of official documents.

Asked to give proof that Fidesz is behind the alleged “transfers,” Karacsony said the legislation that “enables” fraud had been drafted and passed by the current government majority that had also appointed the heads of government offices.

As another example, Karacsony mentioned that over 100 people had registered as an official address an average-sized house in Tornyospalca, a village near Hungary’s eastern borders.

The constituencies in questions, in addition, are those that “Fidesz would most likely be unable to win in a fair vote,” he added.

Karacsony said they will dispatch their activists to monitor at each government office issuing personal documents how many voters take over an address card on the actual day of the ballot, on April 6.

Speaking on behalf of the left-alliance, the leader of the Hungarian Liberal Party (MLP), called the presence of OSCE monitors at the April 6 ballot important. Gabor Fodor told a press conference that they would inform the OSCE monitors about each and every “suspicious case.”

Fidesz, in response, said that the party would initiate a lawsuit against Gergely Karacsony for violation of personal rights and would also file a complaint with bodies overseeing the election. “The left is now in such great despair that they hurry to explain their defeat in advance and they are making unfounded accusations,” Fidesz said in a release.

There will be a free, fair and democratic election in Hungary on April 6, governed by the most transparent rules since the transition to democracy, the party said.

Photo: parbeszedmagyarorszagert.hu

Election 2014 – Left alliance supporters demonstrate in Budapest

Budapest, March 30 (MTI) – About 80,000 people gathered for a demonstration by the left alliance of five parties in front of the Opera House in Budapest today, the organisers said.

mszp-rally-election2014-2Hungarian freedom and Hungarian democracy are still alive, Ferenc Gyurcsany, who heads the opposition Democratic Coalition (DK), said at the demonstration. “Hungarian freedom is not for sale. We won’t give it to the prime minister, we won’t give it to his party, because we owe it to ourselves, to our children and to our grandchildren,” the former prime minister said. “We will send Orban to where he belongs, to the dustbin of history and politics,” Gyurcsany said. Gyurcsany told his supporters that they were Hungarians who understand that the country’s 1,000 years of struggle are about moving toward the west, not the east.

“Let Orban go east, if he wants, we will go west.”

Also addressing the demonstration, Gabor Fodor, the leader of the Liberal Party, said that the general election on April 6 would be an opportunity to choose “between the east and the west, between Moscow and Brussels, and between captivity and freedom”. The ruling Fidesz party has sided with those limiting freedom and wants to make Hungarians servants; Fidesz hates freedom and competition, Fodor said. “They want to take away our freedom, but we won’t allow that,” he said, adding that the left alliance wants press freedom and a close alliance with Europe. He said that those people who gathered for the Fidesz rally on Saturday at Heroes’ Square are part of the Hungarian nation.

“But in order for us to extend to them a hand, we must first defeat them.”

Timea Szabo, the co-chair of the E14-PM electoral alliance, said that there was no chance of representing vulnerable Hungarians and members of the next generations “as long as Hungary is ruled by Viktor Orban.” She said their allies were not Russian President Putin, but those Hungarians who want change.

“Viktor Orban must be stopped, because if he continues to rule for another four years, Hungary will become a Russian colony once and for all.”

Gordon Bajnai, who heads the E14-PM electoral alliance, said anybody who stayed at home on April 6 or would not vote for the left alliance, would really cast a vote for Viktor Orban. The election results depend on those people who did not come to the opposition demonstration, he said. In spite of the turpitude of the regime, there is still a foothold in the country where there is a republic, where Orban must fear you and not you him: the voting booth, Bajnai said. “Whoever doesn’t want to fear for another four years, overcome your fear for an hour, go out and vote for a change of government,” he told the demonstrators. Only the alliance’s joint list and candidates can “dismantle” the government’s super-majority, he added.

mszp-rally-election2014-3Attila Mesterhazy, Socialist leader and the alliance’s candidate for prime minister, promised the demonstrators genuine workplaces, honest wages, an economic policy that supports growth and just social policy. He said that while Fidesz wants a new party-state, the left wants a republic, a modern European Hungary. He said the Orban government had brought impoverishment, emigration and fear, building on the country’s worst traditions. He called the government “Horthyist” in terms of ideology, “feudalist” in approach and “Bolshevik” in view of their exercise of power.

In a statement released after the demonstration, governing Fidesz said the “desperate accusations of hopeless politicians” had been heard at the event. The party added that nobody from the “Gyurcsany coalition” had yet answered the question of where Gabor Simon’s hundreds of millions of forints had come from, referring to foreign accounts belonging to the disgraced former Socialist deputy chairman.

A spokeswoman for radical nationalist Jobbik said the demonstration showed the left alliance has no programme and only hate cements the group. Dora Duro said fresh reports of more foreign bank accounts belonging to Gabor Simon were proof of the Socialists’ crime syndicate.

Photo: MTI

Election 2014 – Hungary loser of IMF loan repayment, says Bajnai

Budapest, March 26 (MTI) – Hungary lost 14 billion forints (EUR 44.86m) on the early repayment of a loan to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Gordon Bajnai, leader of the electoral alliance E14-PM, said on today.

Bajnai spoke in response to economic state secretary Gabor Orban saying earlier in the day that the early repayment of the IMF loan had helped Hungary rebuild investor confidence last year.

Bajnai said in a statement that the Hungarian state had exchanged its IMF loan for a more expensive one. He insisted the repayment was similar to taking out a loan under “usurious” conditions in order to repay another one. Hungary lost 14 billion forints on the “propaganda move” of Prime Minister Viktor Orban and central bank governor Gyorgy Matolcsy, he said.

Bajnai added that Hungary has signed a loan to finance the Paks nuclear upgrade which is twice as expensive as the one it had repaid to the IMF. The loan — while sacrificing the country’s financial-economic sovereignty — will have the “added bonus” of electricity costing double of its current price and the economy being sacrificed to Russian power and financial interests for decades, he said.

Gabor Orban said earlier on Wednesday that the IMF had begun to acknowledge the achievements of the Hungarian economy and it was hoped that the European Commission and rating agencies would soon follow suit. Hungary was no longer an “IMF programme country” after it had repaid its loan, but talks were held last week on an annual evaluation of economic status, where the IMF was “constructive”.

The state secretary said dollar bond issues worth 3 billion froints so far would suffice to finance two-thirds of foreign loans this year. The bond issue has temporarily raised the debt-to-GDP ratio by 2.3 percentage points, but the government continues to stand by its goal of debt reduction by the end of the year, he added.

Photo: MTI

Political Speeches On March 15 – Left Opposition Rally Cancelled Over Storm Alert

Budapest, March 15 (MTI) – The March 15 commemorations of the opposition Unity alliance planned for 3pm in central Budapest has been cancelled due to storm warnings, the organisers said.

The decision was made after consultations with police on grounds that nobody’s safety should be risked, a statement from the alliance sent to MTI said.

The rally will be held on one of the weekends before the April 6 general election, it added.

Statement

Hungary is not only not a republic in name but it does not function as one, the joint statement by the leaders of the Socialist Party, Together, Democratic Coalition, Dialogue for Hungary and the Liberal Party said. The law does not protect citizens from the encroachments of power but rather it protects the power holders from the citizens, it added.

Viktor Orban has governed badly, the statement said. The forint is at a record low, the public debt sky-high and capital for creating jobs has fled the country, as have Hungary’s youth, it added.

“More people in their twenties have escaped to the West under Orban’s reign than the number who emigrated in the wake of the defeat of the uprising in 1849,” Unity said, adding that Orban deliberately divided Hungarians and turned one against the other.

Photo: MTI

Dialogue for Hungary: Mayor of PM’s hometown should declare assets

(MTI) – The mayor of the village of Felcsut, the prime minister’s home in his childhood years, should publish his wealth declaration, an independent lawmaker of the opposition Dialogue for Hungary (PM) party said on Friday.

Rebeka Szabo told a press conference that voters had a right to know how Mayor Lorinc Meszaros, a gas repairman by profession, had become the country’s 88th richest man, having made 7 billion forints (EUR 22.65m) in just four years.

Szabo said Meszaros, who is a friend of Prime Minister Viktor Orban, had won several state procurements and state land leases in Fejer county over the past few years.

She noted that mayors must prepare a declaration of assets each year. However, these are not published automatically, and the Mayor’s Office of Felcsut has denied requests to access the document, she said. When journalists turned to the local district court, their request was also turned down on the ground that it lacked sufficient reason.

Szabo called on Meszaros not to hide behind the court ruling and disclose his wealth, which, if gained in honest ways, could serve as an example to others.

She added that a local grouping of the opposition E14-PM party would organise a demonstration this weekend to urge the mayor to change his mind.

Photo: parbeszedmagyarorszagert.hu

Election 2014 – State has paid out HUF 657bn for company stakes, says opposition

Budapest, March 4 (MTI) – Between 2010 and 2013 the state has spent 657 billion forints (EUR 2.1bn) on buying stakes in companies and wasting taxpayers’ money in the process, opposition E-PM politician Gabor Scheiring told a news conference today.

In the meantime, the business partners of Prime Minister Viktor Orban have “done very well” out of the deals, he insisted.

The lawmaker qualified by parliamentary rules as an independent, noted among the purchases the state’s stake in oil and gas company MOL, which falls into the category of a “straightforward loss”, given that the stake cost 500 billion forints and that “to the present day, there is now a non-realised loss of around 214 billion forints” for the state.

Scheiring said the “political gambling” has cost the taxpayers billions in other ways, as, for example, when it bought the gas businesses of E.ON and MOL. In the case of E.ON 260 billion had been set aside in the budget. According to the estimates of experts, the state massively overpaid for the business, he said, adding that the goal of the prime minister had been to free up gas contained in reserves in order to artificially push down prices.

Among the “gentleman’s hobbies” of Orban, he mentioned the purchase of Ferencvaros soccer stadium and related construction costing the state 12.4 billion forints.

Fidesz, responding to the charges in a statement, said that unlike the previous government led by Ferenc Gyurcsany, the current government had been making efforts to “regain”, maintain and further develop national assets. By contrast, the Gyurcsany-led government merely “sold off, stole and privatised” them, Fidesz said.

Photo: parbeszedmagyarorszagert.hu

Bajnai demands govt backing for Ukraine independence

(MTI) – Withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine, protection of minority rights and the Hungarian government’s clear backing of Ukraine were among the demands expressed by E14-PM leader Gordon Bajnai in a flashmob held at the Russian embassy in Budapest on Sunday.

Bajnai demanded that the Russian government should withdraw its troops from Ukraine without delay and enforce its true interests through international organisations, such as the UN and the OSCE.

He also called on the Ukrainian parliament and government to pay increased attention to the protection of minority rights.

Bajnai asked the Hungarian cabinet to start consultations with the opposition and civil organisations. He urged the government to clearly express its support for Ukraine’s independence, territorial integrity and the Hungarian ethnic minorities living there. The government should present Hungary’s security situation because “news have been spreading for weeks and months about the gas reserves being used up in order to maintain the lies on public utility fees” and it is not known how long the remaining reserves will last, Bajnai said.

He said Hungary, too, has the means to exert pressure and the government should therefore start consultations about the opposition and declare that “as long as the Russian soldiers are treading on Ukrainian land,” the agreement with Russia on the Paks nuclear power station upgrade is being suspended. He also called on the government to suspend all negotiations with Russia about a 3,000 billion forint credit connected to the planned Paks upgrade.

Bajnai said there is the danger for a new Cold War to start and a new Iron Curtain to emerge. He accused the government of having made preparations for years “to drag Hungary back to the Russian zone of interest”. The general election on April 6 will also be about Hungary potentially becoming a post-Soviet state, “a type of Orbanistan,” or a free, independent, democratic and growing European country, Bajnai said.

The event was attended by several hundred people, including PM co-leader Benedek Javor, PM politicians Gabor Scheiring and Peter Szilagyi, DK deputy leader Tamas Bauer and DK spokesman Zsolt Greczy.

Photo: MTI

Unity pledges “modern, European” republic

(MTI) – Hungary’s leftist parties have formed the Unity alliance to build a “fair, modern, European new republic”, Socialist leader Attila Mesterhazy, Unity’s prime minister candidate, told an election rally in western Hungary’s Zalaegerszeg on Friday.

Parties of the Left want to recreate “democracy, justice, welfare, economic growth and new jobs”, Mesterhazy said.

Concerning the government’s recently publishing reports concerning former Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany’s “lies speech” in 2006, Mesterhazy said that “such attacks will only make Unity stronger”, and suggested that the interior ministry had published selected information as seen necessary by the ruling parties.

On the subject of the government’s utilities cuts programme, the Socialist leader said that the scheme was “unjust and not sustainable” but rejected allegations that the Left, should it win the elections, would want to reverse it. The Socialists propose that the cuts should be tied to incomes or consumption, and support that European funds should be used to assist residents in insulating their homes or installing modern ways of heating, he added.

Unemployment is Hungary’s greatest problem, Mesterhazy said, and insisted that the next government should help create jobs that ensure decent wages to employees. Unity wants to significantly increase the number of new jobs and build a knowledge-based economy, rather than making Hungary “an assembly plant”, he said.

Photo: MTI

Election 2014 – ‘Unity’ joint national list registered after Fidesz-Christian Democrats

(MTI) – The joint national list of the opposition Socialists, E14, DK, PM and the Liberal Party, led by Socialist leader Attila Mesterhazy, was registered for the April general election by the National Election Committee on Tuesday.

Under Hungary’s election law, parties that enter individual candidates in at least 27 constituencies in nine counties and Budapest can field a national list.

The National Election Committee said 81 candidates of the left-wing alliance had been registered by committees in individual constituencies by Tuesday.

The deadline for announcing national lists is 4pm on March 4.

The joint list of the ruling Fidesz-Christian Democrats was registered on 21 February.

Photo: MTI