Együtt-Dialogue for Hungary

Election 2014 – Bajnai: Hungary’s future at stake

(MTI) – Hungarians will vote on their future on April 6, deciding whether the country becomes an ex-Soviet state, an “Orbanistan” or a normal, prospering, peaceful country, Gordon Bajnai, head of the E14-PM alliance, said on Monday.

Fidesz has started constructing “Orbanistan” but it needs another four years to complete the project and remain in power “for forty years”, the ex-premier told an election forum in Budapest.

Bajnai blamed Prime Minister Viktor Orban for having diverted the country from the road it had embarked on after its transition to democracy over two decades ago.

Commenting Orban’s state-of-the-nation address on Sunday, Bajnai said the prime minister was not telling the truth when he spoke about growing employment.

In reality “unemployment has been renamed to public work”, while the private sector is employing fewer workers than during the deepest crisis, he said.

Bajnai also challenged Orban’s statement about the decrease in public debt. In fact, public debt has increased by 4,000-5,000 billion forints (EUR 13-16bn) since 2010 even if the Paks investment project is not taken into account, he said.

Bajnai criticised President Janos Ader for having signed the law on upgrading the Paks nuclear power plant and the National Election Committee for having rejected E14-PM’s related referendum initiative.

Photo: MTI

Paks Nuclear Plant Upgrade: E14-PM Activists Climb To Presidential Palace Balcony

Budapest, February 9 (MTI) – Three demonstrators climbed onto the presidential Sandor palace’s balcony today morning as part of a demonstration organised by the E14-PM alliance against the Paks nuclear upgrade.

Police took the three, and five others who helped them by holding their ladders in place, to district police stations for questioning.

The three demonstrators put up banners on the balcony while removing the national and European Union flags from their holders. The banners read: “the people should decide! Referendum on Paks!” and “Why are you afraid of a referendum?”.

Slogans chanted during the demonstration, organised by the electoral movement E14-PM, included “Referendum on Paks” – referring to the nuclear upgrade agreement endorsed by parliament on Thursday.

Rebeka Szabo, an independent lawmaker and E14-PM politician, said after the demonstration that it was to ask President Janos Ader not to sign the law on the Paks upgrade and to call a referendum instead.

The ruling Fidesz party said the “Gyurcsany-coalition” was completely negligible regarding its views on Paks. A statement sent to MTI by the party said the organisers had used the issue of Hungary’s energy security for campaign gains. Before 2010 the Socialists had supported nuclear upgrade plans and it has also transpired that the nuclear plant was the site of Socialist “pay-outs”.

The deputy chairman of the Christian Democrats called the demonstration “unserious, tasteless and aggressive”. Bence Retvari told a press conference that there was no credibility in E14-PM’s protest as earlier the alliance’s politicians supported the upgrade.

Photo: MTI

Left-wing parties protest Paks upgrade in Budapest

(MTI) – Members and supporters of parties of the leftist opposition gathered for a demonstration in central Budapest on Sunday to protest a planned upgrade of Hungary’s nuclear power plant in Paks.

Former Socialist prime minister and head of the Democratic Coalition (DK) party Ferenc Gyurcsany told participants that “we will not give away our homes or the homeland” and insisted that “we will not be subtenants”.

“We reject that the prime minister, who happens to be called Viktor Orban, should behave like a baron and decide over our life,” Gyurcsany said, and called Orban a “liar, traitor”.

Gordon Bajnai, head of the E-PM alliance, referred to Hungary’s upcoming general election, and said that voters will “select a future” on April 6.

“We can choose between becoming a post-Soviet country, ‘Orbanistan’, or… we can vote for an independent and democratic European constitutional state, a ‘normal’ Hungary,” Bajnai said. He argued that the “the monument to this government is a power plant, which symbolises all the reasons why they have to go”.

The demonstration was organised by the Socialist Party, DK, E-PM, and the Hungarian Liberal Party, after the National Elections Committee rejected an initiative by the opposition to put the question of the upgrade to a referendum.

Fidelitas and the Young Christian Democrats (IKSZ), the youth arms of the ruling parties, told MTI that “the Left is lying again when they protest against the upgrade”. IKSZ deputy leader Laszlo Palocz argued that Bajnai, when prime minister, had called the upgrade a strategic objective.

Those opposing cooperation with Russia could just as well protest against cooperation with Germany or the US, Palocz added.

Photo: MTI

Activists occupied the reception area of the National Development Ministry

(MTI) – Police removed the ten activists of the opposition E-PM electoral alliance who occupied the reception area of the National Development Ministry on Friday morning in protest against the planned upgrade of Hungary’s Paks nuclear plant.

The government signed on Jan. 14 a cooperation agreement with Moscow on building new blocks at the plant at Paks in central Hungary . The activist held up a banner reading “Enough secrets! We want a referendum on Paks!” and staged a sit-in in the reception hall.

Rebeka Szabo, a lawmaker of the Dialogue for Hungary party (PM) who sits as an independent in parliament, told reporters they demanded the release of the document signed in Moscow to the public. She said they would also press for a national referendum to be called on the project. “Prime Minister Viktor Orban is afraid and that is why he does not want to hear the opinion of the people,” she said.

Police removed the activists who put up passive resistance.

Szabo said that E-PM will organise another demonstration in Budapest against the Paks project on Sunday.

Photo: MTI

Election 2014 – Left-of-centre forces to campaign under “Unity” banner

(MTI) – The left-of-centre opposition forces have decided to campaign under a single name and have plumped for “Osszefogas” — “Unity”.

In a joint statement, the Socialist Party, Together – the party for change (E), the Democratic Coalition (DK), Dialogue for Hungary (PM), and the Hungarian Liberal Party (MLP) said that the five parties would nominate candidates for each of the 106 individual constituencies under the Unity banner.

On the ballot paper, all their party names and logos will appear, but they will cooperate in campaigning with a single image.

“Naturally, no new political party has been created as a result,” the statement added.

The ruling Fidesz party said in a statement referring to one-time Socialist prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsany that “it hardly matters under what name they try to cover up the truth; it is the same Gyurcsany coalition which already ruined the country.”

Photo: MTI

Analysis: Opposition left-wing and liberal leaders agree on joint list for general election

Budapest, January 14 (MTI) – Hungary’s left-wing opposition parties agreed to submit a joint list for the spring general election, party leaders announced on Tuesday.

The list will be headed by Socialist leader Attila Mesterhazy, who is the left alliance’s candidate for prime minister. Mesterhazy is followed by E-PM leader Gordon Bajnai and Democratic Coalition (DK) leader Ferenc Gyurcsany as third on the list.

Liberal Party leader Gabor Fodor will be entered at fourth place and co-leader of the E-PM alliance and the Dialogue for Hungary (PM) Timea Szabo at fifth place on the joint list of the Socialists, E-PM, DK and Liberals.

The next ten places will be occupied by Socialist politicians. The E-PM will have the 16th and 36th places on the joint list and five additional places between the 40th and 60th.

DK can name five more politicians in addition to Gyurcsany among the first 60 on the list. Under the agreement, the Socialists can field candidates in 71 individual constituencies, the E-PM 22 and DK altogether 13.

Mesterhazy said after the announcement that the talks had been “intense, fast and effective”, and had focused on drafting a programme to build a “new republic” by resolving Hungary’s social, economic and democratic deficiencies. The Socialist leader said he believed the opposition agreement had brought about “a structure in which each participant can trust each other”. The deal did not mean that any party would be forced to give up its political identity, he said. Rather, it set the conditions for the parties to act together in the interest of shared goals, he added.

Bajnai said that forming an electoral alliance was crucial to changing the government. He argued that “all democrats” had been “forced to act together” due to Hungary’s new election rules.

Gyurcsany said: “We have come to a good agreement … the goals of which we can and should work to meet with all our strength.” He interpreted the agreement as one signed by the whole democratic opposition rather than by just three parties. Gyurcsany said he believed Mesterhazy would be “an excellent leader” of the joint list and a good prime minister. He added that signatories to the agreement would “retain their political positions but subordinate their views to the goal of replacing the government”.

Responding to a question, Bajnai admitted that there had been disputes as to whether Gyurcsany should be included on the list, but he insisted that those disputes were not of a personal nature. “Changing the government is more important than any personnel issue,” Bajnai said.

Gyurcsany said he was aware that both the Socialists and E-PM had a different position concerning some issues such as dual citizenship or a police attack on anti-government protesters in 2006, and said that his party would not raise those issues during the election campaign.

Antal Rogan, group leader of ruling Fidesz, told a press conference in response that a “new Gyurcsany coalition”, heralding the start of a “new Gyurcsany era”.

What transpires from the agreement of the Socialists, E-PM and DK is that the Hungarian left has been unable to nominate “a real prime minister candidate” or “present any new face,” said Antal Rogan. “The Hungarian left has failed in its efforts to protect Hungary from Ferenc Gyurcsany,” he said. Rogan said that it is now the job of voters to protect Hungary in the spring election from Gyurcsany’s return to power.

If anyone, it is Gyurcsany who has achieved all he had hoped for over the past several months in the “bargaining” on the political left. He is the one “who has been clearly writing the script … since October 2012, and who has managed to make a comeback into mainstream Hungarian politics,” said Rogan, in reaction to Tuesday’s agreement.

The deal between the three political forces in and of itself will not lead to a solution to the problems of the left wing, political analysts told MTI. Indeed, as a result, the votes of the undecided may be diverted to other parties, analysts of Szazadveg and Political Capital said.

Tamas Lanczi, chief analyst of the Szazadveg Foundation, said that the outcome of the negotiations had clearly gone in Gyurcsany’s favour. He said that whereas Mesterhazy and Bajnai had kept the leader of the DK at arm’s length for a long time, in the end Gyurcsany had prevailed. He added that Gyurcsany was believed to be the driving force of the left wing, and had marshalled an intellectual elite to put pressure on the Socialists and E-PM. Bajnai, he said, was the biggest loser of the deal and had had to give up his ambitions to become prime minister.

Attila Juhasz of Political Capital said that the election strategy of the Socialists and E-PM had been put into doubt due to the fact that the DK’s poll ratings had crept up to equal those of E-PM at between 4 and 6 percent. Meanwhile, the disputes between the parties had prevented them from launching their election campaign, he said.

Photo: MTI – Szilárd Koszticsák

Left-wing alliance: Mesterhazy the prime minister candidate

Budapest, January 8 (MTI) – The Socialist party will give the prime minister candidate for the alliance with E-PM under an agreement sealed on Wednesday, Gordon Bajnai, leader of the electoral alliance E-PM, told a press conference.

The candidate is likely to be Socialist leader Attila Mesterhazy, who had been put forward as a candidate earlier, Bajnai said, adding that E-PM would accept Mesterhazy as a candidate.

A [Socialist party] congress is needed to confirm the candidacy, Mesterhazy told the joint press conference.

The main opposition Socialists and the E-PM electoral alliance agreed on Wednesday to put forward a joint list for the parliamentary election this spring, Mesterhazy said.

A proposal will be made to the Democratic Coalition (DK) to join the list, he added. Mesterhazy said he did not think it likely that they could not reach agreement with Ferenc Gyurcsany’s [DK] party.

Bajnai added that the proposal would be a fair one which DK has a fundamental responsibility to accept, given that they had long advocated the joint list and candidacy.

No details were revealed on the actual names on the list or how the renewed agreement would influence the distribution of constituencies, as this would depend on talks with DK, too. Notably, it is not yet decided how many of the 106 constituencies would go to a DK candidate and at which party’s expense. Mesterhazy only said that he was preparing for fast talks with the DK. He also declined to comment on whether Gyurcsany himself would be on the joint list.

Asked whether he would contact Gabor Fodor’s Liberal Party or the Social Democratic Party led by Andor Schmuck, Mesterhazy said he would move one step at a time, and after talking to the DK it should be considered whether “further efforts were needed to secure the success of this political formation”. However he added that among the parties mentioned only DK had “actual voter support”.

Bajnai said he had goals rather than ambitions and now he put his ambitions for premiership behind the goal of changing the government “to return Hungary to the camp of normal, prospering European countries”. He added that he had asked nothing in return for this decision. He denied speculations about a third prime minister candidate put forward by E-PM at talks. “There was no casting,” he said.

In late August, the Socialists and E-PM agreed to field joint candidates but separate party lists in the spring election. They said they would not have a joint prime minister candidate. This agreement had been sharply criticised by the DK ever since.

Mesterhazy said when talks were restarted earlier this week, at Bajnai’s initiative, it was agreed that a joint list was the best way to strengthen cooperation between the Socialists and the alliance.

Bajnai said that the highest chance for an electoral victory in the spring was if the vote became a “referendum on [Viktor] Orban’s government”. Today the opposition has no majority support among the populace, but this should change with the unification of the opposition forces, which could return faith in changing the government, he said.

Gyurcsany welcomed the agreement in a statement on Wednesday and said DK was ready to start three-way talks immediately. He said on hearing the news he made arrangements to return from a trip abroad.

Fidesz spokeswoman Gabriella Selmeczi called the left-wing party list “completely irrelevant” for the election, because “they are all the same old people, with no new face among them”. “They are the same people who have already ruined Hungary once,” she said. Selmeczi said before the Socialist-E-PM press conference that the left were for scrapping the current pro-family tax system and raising taxes, including advocating plans to hike the personal income tax from the current 16 percent to 40 percent. They want to put the money taken from Hungarian taxpayers’ pockets into foreign companies’ pockets, she said.

The radical nationalist Jobbik said the agreement between the Socialists and E-PM demonstrated the “rebirth of the coalition of lies.” In the current situation, Hungarian voters can only choose between the politicians who destroyed Hungary in the past 24 years or Jobbik that will bring a change, spokeswoman Dora Duro said. When replacing Orban’s government, Jobbik will not bring Gyurcsany back to power, she added.

The opposition LMP party will not enter any electoral alliance with political forces that used to be in power, LMP co-leader Andras Schiffer said on Wednesday. Should LMP come to power, it will get rid of both the left-wing and the right-wing political elite, he said. Schiffer said that LMP insists on its original strategy and offers an alternative to those who wished the Gyurcsany-Bajnai governments “would go to hell” in 2010 and also to those who are now fed up with the “regime of national cynicism.”

Photo: MTI- Tamás Kovács

Election 2014: Socialists to name PM candidate for alliance

Budapest, January 8 (MTI) – The Socialist party will give the prime minister candidate for the alliance with E-PM under an agreement sealed on Wednesday, Gordon Bajnai, leader of the electoral alliance E-PM, told a press conference.

The candidate is likely to be Socialist leader Attila Mesterhazy, who had been put forward as a candidate earlier, Bajnai said, adding that E-PM would accept Mesterhazy as a candidate.

A [Socialist party] congress is needed to confirm the candidacy, Mesterhazy told the joint press conference.

The main opposition Socialists and the E-PM electoral alliance agreed on Wednesday to put forward a joint list for the parliamentary election this spring, Mesterhazy said.

A proposal will be made to the Democratic Coalition (DK) to join the list, he added. Mesterhazy said he did not think it likely that they could not reach agreement with Gyurcsany’s [DK] party.

No details were revealed on the actual names on the list or how the renewed agreement would influence the distribution of constituencies, as this would depend on talks with DK, too.

Photo: MTI – Tamás Kovács

New left-wing alliance agreement?

Budapest, January 6 (MTI) – An agreement between the main opposition Socialists and the E-PM electoral alliance needs to be rewritten since E-PM plans to run at the spring general election as a political party and not as an alliance, Socialist leader Attila Mesterhazy said today.

Mesterhazy told public Kossuth Radio that the aim is always have a single left-wing candidate against the contender of the ruling Fidesz party in every constituency.

He added that it is time to assess the current situation also because the president is expected to soon announce the official date of the election and the Democratic Coalition, led by ex-premier Ferenc Gyurcsany, now has about the same voter support as E-PM.

Mesterhazy said he had proposed to E-PM leader Gordon Bajnai to meet in the second half of the week for consultations about a redraft of their agreement.

The opposition Democratic Alliance welcomes an initiative by E-PM and its leader Gordon Bajnai to start consultations on expanding an opposition alliance agreement and is ready for the talks at any time, DK leader Ferenc Gyurcsany said today.

Hungary’s left-wing is only concerned about acquiring power and the fractioned parties will continue fighting with each other unless they manage to join forces for the election, ruling Fidesz spokesman Robert Zsigo.

Photo: www.patriotaeuropa.hu

E-PM asks for European probe into Hungary M4 motorway

Budapest, January 3 (MTI) – The opposition E-PM alliance is asking European institutions to probe the costs of a motorway section in eastern Hungary.

E-PM co-leader Benedek Javor told a press conference on Friday that the M4 section between Abony and Fegyvernek had cost a total 110 billion forints (EUR 370m), 3.8 billion per kilometre. This, he insisted, is the costliest such project “in the history of Hungary’s motorways”.

Javor noted that the section, built on flatland, was one billion forints more expensive per kilometre than another section of the M7 built in rolling countryside in the west.

E-PM is turning to the European Commission’s anti-fraud office and the European Court of Audit to establish whether national and EU funds were appropriately utilised and whether there was any evidence of graft or kickbacks to a political party, Javor said.

In his appeal to the European forums, Javor said there was a suspicion that a part of the funds paid to contractors, including a company associated with the ruling Fidesz party, may have landed with Fidesz as illegal party financing.

Javor noted that his party had approached the government’s supervisory agency and the State Audit Office, but said that they received no answer to their questions.

In response to Javor’s announcement, the National Development Ministry said in a statement that the EU routinely monitored the financing of any major project. The EU consented to providing support for the construction, and had already started making routine checks regarding the project’s necessity, cost of construction and its environmental aspects.

The ministry said that the average per-kilometre cost of motorway construction was 2.3 billion forints in 2013, but the 29km section in question involved building 27 facilities, including 6 bridges, the cost of which had raised the budget by 37 billion forints. “Unavoidable extra costs arising from local geographic and water conditions accounted for nearly 60 percent of the total budget,” it said, adding that contractors had been selected in a public tender. Companies with the lowest bids were awarded the contract, the statement noted.

Photo: erdely.ma

 

Putting the government in the media

In August, the most watched news programs was theme of the government’s economic policy measures and the celebration on 20 August, while Roma’s murder trial is not really kicked a ball – was revealed by the media authority quick report. Intresting, The Christian Democratic (KDNP) politicians, the smaller ruling party in the state media appeared more like Jobbik, LMP, the DK or Együtt-PM. Surprising data on hand to Attila Mesterházy twice as long talked about in the news as Viktor Orban.

The government’s economic policy, in commemoration of the 20th August, as well as natural disasters, extreme weather caused most of the damage dealt to the news in August.

The National Media and Communications Authority (NMHH) on Tuesday released preliminary results on the use of media by politicians M1 watch The Evening News politics five percent of the time spent on communication with steering viewers, while Fidesz received 44 percent more time. The Christian Democratic (KDNP) proportion of almost 8 per cent, 17 per cent of the MSZP, Jobbik 5, the LMP 3, DK 4 percent, while the Együtt-PM more than 9 percent of operators during the time has come.