Election 2014 – Fidesz-KDNP completes list of election candidates
Budapest, February 8 (MTI) – The ruling Fidesz party’s steering board has approved the governing parties’ national list of election candidates, headed by prime minister and party leader Viktor Orban, the party’s deputy leader Lajos Kosa said in Budapest today.
Viktor Orban is followed on the list by deputy prime minister and leader of the Christian Democrats Zsolt Semjen, Speaker of Parliament Laszlo Kover, and first officer of Parliament Marta Matrai.
Next on the list were Mihaly Varga, the economy minister, Lajos Kosa, a senior official, Janos Lazar, the head of the Prime Minister’s Office and Antal Rogan, leader of Fidesz’s parliamentary group.
Presenting the 150-member list, Kosa told a press conference that it is not ruled out that the alliance will again win two-thirds support in the spring election.
Whole list of election candidates HERE.
Photo: MTI
Election 2014 – Jobbik presents national list, candidates
Budapest, February 5 (MTI) – Radical nationalist Jobbik on Wednesday presented its national list and individual candidates for the April 6 general election.
The 116-member national list is topped by party leader Gabor Vona, Jobbik’s prime minister candidate, followed by 25 Jobbik members sitting also as lawmakers in Hungary’s current assembly.
Speaking at a press conference, Vona said that unlike ruling Fidesz leader Viktor Orban and opposition Socialist leader Attila Mesterhazy, he is the only prime minister candidate who will run in an individual constituency, in northern Hungary’s Gyongyos.
The list has five Jobbik member ethnic Hungarians from beyond the border, placed 46th-50th, Vona noted.
Istvan Meszaros, the chief captain of the New Hungarian Guard Movement is 55th on the list, he added.
Levente Muranyi, who was convicted for 1956, is symbolically placed 56th on the list, he said.
Vona said Jobbik would hold a rally launching its nationwide election campaign on February 15 in Miskolc, the seat of Borsod-Abauj-Zemplen county the party wants to turn into its stronghold.
He said Jobbik will run its campaign “as the strongest opposition party” that “has managed to remain the only opposition force maintaining unity over the past four years against the two-thirds government majority” in parliament.
He said Jobbik would communicate its slogan “order, livelihood and accountability” in mostly personal campaigns.
Photo: jobbik.hu
Election 2014 – POLL – Unity on same level as left parties were combined
Budapest, February 5 (MTI) – The opposition Unity alliance had the same level of support at 22 percent of the electorate in January as the left-of-centre parties had combined in previous recent surveys, pollster Median said today.
Ruling party Fidesz continues to hold its strong lead among all voters, and in fact added a couple of percentage points to stand at 39 percent between Jan. 24 and 28, when Median asked a representative sample of 1,200 voting-age adults their preferences.
Political activism has reinvigorated, says Median, and now 76 percent back one party or another. The last time the electorate was this active was in the spring of 2010, when Fidesz won its landslide. Similarly, the proportion of the electorate declaring their certainty to vote has risen to 52 percent.
Among decided voters, Fidesz had the backing of 52 percent in Median’s poll, while the left-of-centre opposition Unity had the support of 30 percent. Radical nationalist party Jobbik was preferred by 14 percent while LMP was liked by just 2 percent.
Fully 60 percent of Median’s sample believed that Fidesz would win the April 6 election.
Prime Minister Viktor Orban follows the president of the republic as the most popular political figure, while Attila Mesterhazy, leader of the Socialist Party, was the most popular opposition figure. He was followed by Gabor Vona, the Jobbik leader.
Come to light: Top Socialist has undeclared assets in Austrian bank account
Budapest, February 4 (MTI) – Gabor Simon, the deputy chairman of the Hungarian Socialist Party, has undeclared assets held in an Austrian bank account, Magyar Nemzet daily reported today.
Without citing its sources, the paper said that the Socialist politician had placed 575,000 euros and 162,954 US dollars in a securities account opened in Austria on April 10, 2009, while on October 16, 2013 his deposit account contained 770,000 euros.
The paper added that Simon’s earlier asset declarations did not contain these amounts and there is no indication of their origin.
The politician allegedly told the bank that the source of the money was a company and the sale of a Budapest property, the paper said.
MTI made several attempts on Tuesday morning to contact Simon for comment on Magyar Nemzet’s article, but was unable to speak to him.
PM co-leader Benedek Javor, a member of the Unity opposition alliance formed with the Socialist Party, told a press conference that he understood the Socialists had decided “to part with” Simon. Javor said the situation needs to be cleared up and the Socialists need to make the next move. He added that he understood the Socialists also believe that “this was a condemnable step by Gabor Simon” and “his involvement in the 2014 election under the Socialists’ banner is undesirable.”
Commenting on the Magyar Nemzet report, Antal Rogan, parliamentary leader of the Fidesz party, said “we are waiting for a Socialist reaction to clear up the situation. They must say what’s true about these claims and what isn’t.”
The leftist Democratic Coalition (DK), another member of Unity, said that if the news about Simon are authentic, the Socialists’ deputy leader should leave the political arena.
DK spokesman Zsolt Greczy expressed the conviction that Socialist leader Attila Mesterhazy would take the toughest and most resolute action.
Gyorgy Rubovszky, the Christian Democratic chairman of Parliament’s immunities committee, said the committee would start an investigation concerning Simon’s asset declaration.
Rubovszky said he had convened the committee for next Tuesday.
Photo: mszp.hu
Jobbik expects “chaos” with Hungarians voting abroad
(MTI) – The radical nationalist Jobbik party thinks that Hungary’s upcoming general election will lead to “scandalous” developments abroad, due to what the party considers an insufficient number of polling stations and an increasing number of Hungarians living in other countries.
Jobbik lawmaker Gergely Farkas told a press conference on Saturday that there had not been enough polling stations abroad for the 2010 election, and while the number of Hungarians working abroad has “drastically increased”, the government has not provided additional polling facilities.
As an example, Farkas said that in the whole United Kingdom, London was the only place where the 10,000 Hungarians living in that country but having a permanent address in Hungary could cast their ballot. That will lead to chaos and long queues at the polls, the lawmaker insisted.
Jobbik finds it unacceptable that while ethnic Hungarians can vote by mail, Hungarians staying in another country are only allowed to vote at embassies or consular offices, Farkas said.
The government “politically discriminates” against those Hungarians, because “they have mostly left the country because of the policies of Fidesz and the previous, Socialist governments”, and the ruling and main opposition parties “could not expect many votes” from that community, Farkas said.
Photo: jobbik.hu
Which was the most supported Hungarian party in January?
Budapest, January 31 (MTI) – Support for political parties in Hungary in January, gauged by pollsters Ipsos, Tarki, Nezopont and Szazadveg on representative samples:
           Ipsos Tarki Nezopont Szazadveg Â
-----------------------------------------------------
Fidesz-KDNP 28 29 37 32
MSZP (Socialists) 16 14 10 13
Jobbik 6 8 10 10
E14-PM alliance* 3 4 7 4
LMP 2 1 3 3
Dem. Coalition** 3 3 4 3
AMONG DECIDED VOTERS
Ipsos Tarki Nezopont Szazadveg
-----------------------------------------------------
Fidesz-KDNP 48 49 46 52
MSZP (Socialists) 27 23 10 21
Jobbik 11 14 10 14
E14-PM alliance* 5 7 9 5
LMP 3 2 3 3
Dem. Coalition** 5 6 4 4
*Â Â Non-parliamentary electoral alliance of Together 2014 and Dialogue for Hungary (E14-PM).Â
**Â Â Lawmakers of the Democratic Coalition are formally listed as independent MPs.
*** The threshold for a party to win parliamentary seats is 5 percent of votes cast on its list.
Gyurcsany says Unity plans around 30pc tax on high incomes
Budapest, January 30 (MTI) – The left-wing opposition parties in the Unity alliance agree that monthly incomes above 400-500,000 forints (EUR 1,300-1,600) will be subject to a personal income tax of around 30 percent if they win the April election, DK leader Ferenc Gyurcsany said on Thursday.
Gyurcsany told commercial station TV2 that introducing a second personal income tax bracket could generate around 100-150 billion forints in revenues which could be used to discontinue taxes that hinder investment and lending, plus there would be money left for social-welfare purposes.
He noted that even Szazadveg, a think tank close to the government, said that only the wealthiest 25 percent make use of the 400 billion forints left in people’s pockets thanks to the introduction of flat-rate tax.
Gyurcsany told a conference organised by his party on Wednesday that the government’s economic policy is unsustainable, the past three years were characterised by austerity measures and, contrary to the government propaganda, Hungary is performing worse and not better.
The inflation forecast, the base rate and the current monetary policy are not tenable either, Gyurcsany said. The 2014 budget deficit will be 3.5 percent as against the government’s projected 2.9 percent, he added.
Gyurcsany attributed low inflation merely to “artificially suppressed and unsustainable” energy prices. Among the austerity measures introduced in the past three years, he cited cutting universities’ budgets from 200 billion forints in 2010 to 134 billion forints and the lowering of wages for public workers.
Gyurcsany said even if the left-wing Unity wins the spring election, there will be no more money available in the short term, so people should not be promised more money, and “fiscal adjustments will certainly be needed.”
“Still, life will be better in certain respect, for instance the country will be more free,” Gyurcsany said.
Photo: MTI
Socialists elect Mesterhazy to prime minister candidate of Unity
Budapest, January 25 (MTI) – The main opposition Socialists on Saturday elected party leader Attila Mesterhazy to prime minister candidate of the opposition alliance parties campaigning under the “Osszefogas” – “Unity” banner.
Mesterhazy received 99.7 percent support and the party unanimously approved the alliance of five opposition parties signed earlier, the Socialists told MTI.
The left-wing opposition leaders announced on January 14 that they would run on a joint list at the spring general election. The list is headed by Mesterhazy, followed by E14 leader Gordon Bajnai, Democratic Coalition leader Ferenc Gyurcsany, Liberal Party leader Gabor Fodor and PM co-leader Timea Szabo.
The parties of Unity also agreed on the allocation of constituencies at the time.
Photo: MTI
Civil rights groups criticise campaign placard decree
(MTI) – A recent government decree banning election placards on electricity pylons, over public roads or on the roadside, curbs the freedom of campaigning and thus reduces a chance for fair elections, civil rights groups said in a statement on Friday.
The Civil Liberties Union (TASZ), the Hungarian Helsinki Committee and the Eotvos Karoly Institute said the ban, which became effective this week, does not apply to posters conveying government information.
The statement’s signatories said that the decree, which they see as an extension of an earlier general ban on advertisements on roadsides, is an “unnecessary and unconstitutional restriction” of election campaigns as well as the right of voters to freely obtain information necessary for participating in the ballot.
In response, the Szazadveg Institute said in a statement that even before the current ban it had been prohibited to place election posters along roadsides.
Szazadveg research director Balazs Orban argued that the earlier legislation, enacted in 2011, had applied to all advertisements that sought to convince viewers to “support or reject any ideology, principle, value or idea”. The new decree, he said, merely contains a clearer definition of the earlier ban.
Orban noted that last year the Constitutional Court had found the earlier legislation to be in line with the constitution and reasonable as the ads may distract drivers.
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
Disinterest In Voting For minority List At Spring Election
Budapest, January 20 (MTI) – Interest in registering for minority lists for the spring general election has been paltry, with only 819 people registering so far, daily Nepszabadsag said today.
The majority of those that have registered to vote for minority lists are German and only 46 Roma have decided so far to sign up to the Roma minority list, the paper said.
Registration has been open since the start of the year and will close 15 days before the April 6 election date. The new rules state that 13 national minorities can set up lists and one candidate from each list can receive a mandate in parliament.
German minority experts told the paper that they expect around 19-24,000 votes will be necessary for a mandate.
However, whoever registers on minority list will not have the right to vote for a mainstream candidate.
Photo:Â www.jokortv.hu
Ader sets date of 2014 election for April 6
(MTI) – President Janos Ader on Saturday set the date of Hungary’s 2014 general election for April 6, which is the earliest possible Sunday under the law.
In a statement issued by the President’s Office, Ader said that at the past three parliamentary elections, the people of Hungary could always express their wish in the first half of April.
In addition to paying respect to this tradition, Ader said his decision was also based on the understanding that it is a rightful expectation of the citizens of Hungary that the campaign period should not extend longer than necessary.
It is in Hungary’s interest that the new government to be formed in 2014 should be able to start work as soon as possible, he said. The sooner the new government is set up, there will be the least delay in getting access to development resources from European Union funding, he added.
Additionally, Ader said having the election on April 6 will allow the Easter holidays to be held in peaceful and calm circumstances.
The opposition Socialists, E-PM, DK and LMP said they were not surprised about Ader’s announcement of the date for the spring parliamentary election on April 6.
Socialist leader Attila Mesterhazy said in a statement sent to MTI that earlier “slips” by several ruling Fidesz politicians indicated that a decision on the election date had been made for quite some time.
E-PM said in a statement that setting the election date at the earliest possible time has been a “ruling party decision” that was made all the more likely by developments in recent weeks.
DK co-leader Agnes Vadai said Ader “only announced a date demanded by Viktor Orban.” She added, however, that the party appreciates that the campaign will be the shortest possible and a new cabinet can be set up within the soonest time.
LMP group leader Andras Schiffer said the party acknowledges the president’s sovereign right to select the election date but noted that “it had been obvious” that a later date would have been unfavourable to the ruling parties.
Socialist leader says campaign must focus on bread-and-butter worries
Budapest, January 17 (MTI) – An intensive, sincere and responsible campaign focusing on people’s everyday bread-and-butter worries is needed in order to defeat ruling Fidesz in the spring general election, main opposition Socialist leader Attila Mesterhazy said in Friday’s daily Nepszabadsag.
Mesterhazy told the paper in an interview that he did not believe in political “magic bullets” but a simple, black-and-white communication campaign. Clear-cut and memorable information must be supplied to people who have little interest in politics in order to motivate them to vote, he added.
No matter how important the issues concerning constitutionality and democracy are, experience shows that citizens are most interested in jobs, wages, the lack of security, the condition of education and the quality of health care, Mesterhazy said.
At the same time, plans to restore constitutionality must not be neglected in the campaign, either, he added.
Photo: mszp.hu
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
President Ader: 2014 year of elections, anniversaries
(MTI) – For Hungarians 2014 will be a year of elections and important anniversaries, President Janos Ader said in an address to foreign ambassadors accredited to Hungary, on Monday evening.
In 2014, Hungary will continue its efforts to promote “international cooperation based on mutual respect, good neighbourly relations, reinforced Euro-Atlantic alliances, and completion of universal human and civic rights”, Ader said before the ambassadors at the Palac of Arts.
This year, Hungary would mark the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War, and the 70th anniversary of the Holocaust. Concerning the latter, the President warned that “honest people will not side with genocide, segregation, or xenophobia”. “The only ethical approach for honest people is to respect life and human dignity,” he added.
Ader noted that Hungary would also celebrate the 25th anniversary of the political regime change, of “the start of a peaceful transformation of our political institutions”, a process which eventually lead to the reunification of a “Europe torn in two parts”.
The political changes have brought about a new age of “freedom, democracy, and cooperation” in which “Hungarians will freely decide about their future and their parliament for the seventh time, elect deputies to the European Parliament for the third time, and select municipal officials at the local elections in the autumn,” Ader said.
Photo: MTI – László Beliczay
Roma party campaigns against registration as minority for spring election
(MTI) – Hungary’s Roma Party (MCP) on Friday placed a batch of over 2,000 voided application sheets at the National Roma Self-government headquarters (OCO) in Budapest to protest against the registration of the Roma as y minority for the spring general election.
Hungary’s electoral law requires voters who register for the autumn minority elections to indicate on the registration sheets whether they wish to cast their ballots on the list of their respective minority or on a political party list in the general election. It follows that if a Roma is registered as a minority voter, he or she loses the possibility of voting for party lists.
Jozsef Radics, leader of MCP’s Pest county chapter, said they collected but crossed out to invalidate the registration sheets instead of undersigning them because they “consider themselves first and foremost Hungarians” and would not want to have the only option to vote on a list compiled solely by OCO.
Photo: c-press.hu
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