election

Opposition LMP urges state audit of Fidesz’s campaign spending

Fidesz Baile Tusnad

The opposition LMP party has turned to the State Audit Office (ASZ) and requested a probe into financing details of ruling Fidesz’s campaign before the April general election, a spokesman for the party told a press conference on Monday.

Gábor Vágó insisted that the government had violated rules through its “Stop Soros” campaign, from which Fidesz benefitted. He said that the government had spent “billions of forints” to get Fidesz’s message through to voters, thus influencing the outcome of the vote.

Vágó called on ASZ to “apply the same standards” for all political parties and impose a fine on Fidesz once the audit is complete.

ASZ said in response that it monitors campaign financing “in full compliance with relevant laws” and using “the same criteria” for all organisations. ASZ will audit all winning candidates and political parties within one year of the April 8 vote and publish a report of its finding, the authority said in its statement.

Featured image: MTI

Opposition Socialists: Electoral law amendment serves Fidesz interests

parliament Fidesz

The amendment of the electoral law serves the interests of the ruling Fidesz-Christian Democrats rather than those of the country, the opposition Socialists said on Tuesday.

The ruling parties are continuing a trend they started in recent years by manipulating the electoral laws, Socialist lawmaker Zsolt Molnár told a press conference.

The amendments allow Fidesz an unfair advantage, he added.

The system remains open to abuse, with unrealistically lax conditions for postal voting by ethnic Hungarians in neighbouring countries, while those with a permanent address in Hungary working abroad face great difficulties if they want to cast their votes, he said.

The Socialists have submitted proposals to address the law’s shortcomings. However, the rule that one voter may support the nomination of more than one candidate, which enabled several abuses in the last election, remain intact, Molnár added.

He also criticised the fact that the state, local councils and companies owned by them are not banned from paying for advertisements during the campaign.

The Fidesz group called it pathetic that the Socialists have been pointing fingers at others because of their own failures and incompetence for several years.

Featured image: MTI

Former mayor: Voters reject pro-migration opposition in Budapest’s 8th district by-election

botond sára 8th district

Voters voiced their opinion of the entire Hungarian opposition in Sunday’s by-election in Budapest’s 8th district, stating that they “want to have nothing to do with this pro-migration opposition, whether in coalition or not”, Fidesz lawmaker Máté Kocsis, the former mayor of the district, said late on Sunday.

The ruling Fidesz-Christian Democrat alliance’s Botond Sára won 62.85 percent of the votes in the ballot held to replace Kocsis after his election to the national assembly.

“A sweeping victory in the middle of Budapest,” Kocsis told a press conference.

Sára, the district’s current deputy mayor, defeated Péter Győri, an independent candidate backed by the opposition Socialists, Democratic Coalition, LMP, Momentum, Párbeszéd, the Hungarian Liberals and civil groups, and Zsolt István Fehérvári, the candidate of the Hungarian Workers’ Party.

According to the national election office, Győri received 36.39 percent of the vote and Fehérvári 0.76 percent. Turnout was 23 percent.

Sára said that the voters have given him mandate to continue with the development started in the previous cycle, and voted for security, order and progress.

The opposition’s alternative “raised the spectre of [the district] becoming a homeless den, a place for drug addicts and foreign immigrants,” he said. Mayoralty is a tool to help citizens of the district live in a safer, more orderly environment and better conditions, Sára said.

Featured image: www.facebook.com/dr.SáraBotond

Leftist opposition DK: Stake of 2019 EP election ‘open or reclusive Europe’

Daily News Hungary

The meeting between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán this week has shown that voters will have to decide between a humane EU built on liberal democracy or an “autocratic future within fences and walls” at the 2019 EP election, an MEP of the leftist Democratic Coalition said on Saturday.

Péter Neidermüller told a press conference in Budapest that the prime minister “has obviously committed himself to far-right governments”. In doing so, Orbán ruins moderate right-wing politics in Europe, he said.

Orbán “refuses to understand” that restrictive immigration policies do not solve the problem but boost the activities of human smugglers,

Neidermüller, who is also DK’s deputy leader, said.

Orbán met Merkel in Berlin on Thursday, where they discussed economic cooperation, defence policy and their countries’ migration policies. Merkel said after the talks that defence cooperation between Germany and Hungary was close, and called for further strengthening economic ties in the EU in the face of challenges such as digitalisation, alternative modes of transport and artificial intelligence. Orbán said that Hungary is taking a big burden off Germany’s shoulders by preventing anyone who enters Hungary from sidestepping the law, and that Hungary’s border protection efforts should be recognised as solidarity.

Ruling Fidesz responded by saying that

Neidermüller “is considered a faithful ally of [American financier George] Soros in Brussels”.

He is “one of those who have voted in favour of every pro-migration decision, he regularly participates in attacks against Hungary, supports mandatory migrant resettlement” and has signed a resolution saying that NGOs offering humanitarian assistance to migrants should not be punished for their actions, the party said in a statement.

Mayoral candidate outlines plans to continue rehabilitating Budapest’s 8th district

botond sára 8th district

Botond Sára, the current deputy mayor of Budapest‘s 8th district who is a Fidesz candidate to head the district parts of which are blighted by poverty and homelessness, has addressed opposition charges that he would move to evict thousands of local residents.

In an interview on Friday to television current affairs channel M1, the politician insisted that only squatters, residents who steal electricity and gas and otherwise ruin their living environment would be kicked out, while indebted households who are struggling with bills will continue to be given numerous opportunities to settle them during the years-long eviction procedure.

Sára said he would continue the local rehabilitation scheme involving revamping Blaha Lujza Square and the Orczy Quarter.

It is important, he added, that the next mayor should maintain a good relationship with parliament and the government.

Surveys show that locals are worried about public hygiene linked to the problem of homelessness and the state of health care, he said.

“These are things that we have to improve.”

Whereas it is important to care for the needy, this should not be done at the expense of local residents, he said, adding many of the city’s homeless are to be found in the district. This problem must be addressed while keeping the interests of local residents in mind, Sára said.

As we wrote on yesterday, Péter Győri, an independent candidate running for mayor of Budapest’s 8th district, has vowed not to sign any home eviction orders linked to indebted households if he wins the election.

Photo: Facebook – Botond Sára

Independent candidate for Budapest 8th district mayor to reject evictions, if elected

8th district election candidate

Péter Győri, an independent candidate running for mayor of Budapest’s 8th district, has vowed not to sign any home eviction orders linked to indebted households if he wins the election.

Győri, backed by the opposition Socialists, Democratic Coalition, LMP, Momentum, Párbeszéd and Hungarian Liberals and civil groups, is running against Botond Sára, deputy mayor of the district representing the ruling Fidesz-Christian Democrat alliance, in the July 8 ballot.

If Sara wins on Sunday, there will be “mass evictions” following the vote, Győri told reporters, adding that he knew of several families who had already packed their belongings.

Győri said

he knew of plans to sell 4,700 local council flats which are currently rented out to households some of which are poor.

Gábor Erőss, member of Párbeszed’s presidium and a district deputy, said that during Sára’s incumbency the local council had paid millions of forints to lawyers linked to Fidesz to arrange evictions.

“These lawyers are earning fortunes on the back of people in need,” he added.

Erőss said that the billions of forints Lőrinc Mészáros, a businessman linked to the Hungarian prime minister, had spent on building two equestrian halls could be put to better use by providing social housing for the needy.

A by-election will be held to replace Fidesz’s Máté Kocsis, who is giving up his mayoralty after his election to the national assembly in the April 8 general election. As we wrote on May, ruling Fidesz lawmakers have elected Máté Kocsis leader of their parliamentary group in a unanimous vote, read more HERE.

Photo: https://www.facebook.com/2018julius8/

Bill would make all party nominees liable for repaying campaign funds

Daily News Hungary

All nominees fielded by a political party in election campaigns would be made liable for the repayment of campaign funds, under amendment proposals to the campaign finance and electoral laws submitted to parliament by ruling Fidesz.

Under Hungarian law, parties fielding a national list are entitled to state campaign funding. If the party fails to garner at least one percent of the vote in the election, it must repay the funding. In a November 2017 amendment to the campaign finance law, the leaders of political parties became personally liable for the repayment.

Under the bill submitted on Tuesday, parties which fail to account for campaign funding they received previously would not be eligible for new funding.

Another amendment proposal, also sponsored by Fidesz, aims to make voting easier for citizens by making the procedure more transparent.

According to the bill, campaign ads would have to carry an imprint bearing the name of the party that ordered the advertisement, except where the photo or name of the organisation or the candidate are clearly visible. Political ads may only be displayed with the written permission of the owner of the structure on which they are displayed, the proposal said. The name of the customer shall appear next to ads published in newspapers, it said.

Parties would have to submit the names of their candidates and their lists earlier, 37 and 36 days before the election, respectively, the proposal said.

Under the current law, those deadlines are tighter, which the sponsors said were too short for ballots sent by post to arrive.

Orbán’s cabinet: Stability in Turkey in Europe, Hungary’s interest

Turkey Erdogan election

A stable Turkey is in the interest of Europe and Hungary since it is key in enforcing the implementation of the EU-Turkish migration deal, the Hungarian foreign minister said late on Sunday, in reaction to Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s outright victory in the first round of the Turkish presidential election.

Péter Szijjártó welcomed Erdogan’s re-election, saying it would help maintain stability in Turkey.

Stability in that country is crucial for enforcing the EU-Turkish pact, Szijjártó said. Without it, Hungary would soon be exposed to a new wave of illegal migrants arriving at its southern borders, as there is no other line of defence to prevent their inflow via the western Balkans, he told MTI.

Szijjártó said Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán was the first European leader to congratulate Erdogan on his re-election by phone.

“Stability in Turkey is good news for the whole of Europe, as our continent faces countless serious challenges that can only be overcome through predictable and effective cooperation with Turkey,” Orbán wrote in his MTI letter.

Orbán reassured Erdogan that his government would continue to work to further advance bilateral economic, trade, education and cultural ties.

He expressed hope that the two countries could soon arrange the Turkish president’s previously postponed visit to Hungary.

Featured image: MTI/EPA

Socialists elect new party leader, board members

budapest airport terminal 2

The opposition Socialist Party’s congress on Sunday elected Bertalan Tóth party chairman.

Toth garnered 54 percent of the votes, while Attila Mesterházy, the other candidate, was supported by 46 percent of the party delegates.

After his election, Tóth said that he would seek to build a “cooperative party which represents traditional leftist values relentlessly”, one which “believes in solidarity, justice, equal opportunities and national cohesion”. He added that his party should be a “real community” and “offer hope by protecting those persecuted by the establishment”.

He also said that the Socialists should “implacably criticise” the government and become “the driving force” for a government change.

Tóth said it was inevitable that his party should “face the past”. He argued that Hungary’s Left had been “lazy” and failed to “express and promote its own truth” while ruling Fidesz promoted a “post-fascist world view” and made it popular. He insisted that during the past 8 years of the Orbán government the gap between rich and poor was growing and while the prime minister had had an opportunity “to go to Oxford from Alcsút (his native village)”, young people in rural areas may not be in the same position.

Tóth criticised the government’s budget proposal and said that “those destroying education or health will destroy the country’s future”.

The congress elected Ágnes Kunhalmi head of the party’s national board, as well as Gyula Hegyi, Imre Komjáthi, and Tibor Szanyi as deputy chairmen of the party.

Featured image: MTI

Opposition Jobbik denies reports of exodus of party members

Jobbik parliament

Jobbik’s spokesman has dismissed reports of an exodus of party members.

Péter Jakab told public television on Tuesday that it was “natural” for members who disagree with the decisions of the party majority to quit after a leadership shake-up.

Ever since the May 12 party congress in which Tamás Sneider was elected to head the patriotic people’s party, 50 percent more people joined than left Jobbik, he said, adding that far from splitting, membership was stable.

“We still insist that Jobbik must represent the whole country, left-wingers as much as right-wingers.”

Jobbik lawmaker Dóra Dúró announced her decision to leave the party on Friday. Prior to that, Jobbik’s disciplinary committee froze out former deputy leader László Toroczkai who had made an unsuccessful run to lead the party before attempting to set up a platform within it.

Several members and officials, including Norbert Szőcs, Jobbik’s leader in Baranya County, have said they will follow in Dúró’s footsteps.

Featured image: MTI

Orbán: Struggle between values, cultures taking place in Europe

Viktor Orbán European Parliament

The upcoming European parliamentary election will be about a struggle for values and cultures and a lot is at stake, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said at a forum on Sunday.

In a private forum, Orbán said Hungary’s opportunities were vast but there were also serious threats, the first being migration, the PM’s press chief Bertalan Havasi said.

Orbán said elections in Austria and Italy showed that whereas there are forces promoting migration and multiculturalism, there are those who are anti-migration and prioritise Christian culture.

Brussels, representing a globalist immigration culture, has weakened the European Union, and it was unable to stop Brexit, he said, which he attributed to migration and the dilution of European culture.

The prime minister said the Hungarian people had handed the government a great opportunity and the government derived “strength from representing them”.

“We imagine our future within Europe and within the EU, but Hungary comes first for us,” he added.

Hungary’s interest lies in protecting national sovereignty and the equality of the peoples of Europe, he said.

“We have our homeland and our country, and we’re not going to give it away to anybody,” Orbán said.

Featured image: MTI

Eurobarometer 2018: Hungarians see migration, terrorism as key drivers of EP elections

European Parliament building

The majority of Hungarians see migration, the fight against terrorism and unemployment as the most important issues of the 2019 European parliamentary elections, a new survey by Eurobarometer shows.

Fully 60 percent of Hungarians said that migration was the most important issue of the campaign, followed by the fight against terrorism (47 percent), the protection of the EU’s external borders (43 percent) and unemployment (40 percent), the survey published on Wednesday shows.

Fully 61 percent of Hungarians think the country’s EU membership is “a good thing”, up by 5 percentage points from last year and up 14 percentage points since 2016, the report said.

Half of Hungarian respondents felt their voice counted in the EU, an 11 percentage point rise since 2017.

“With one year to go to the European elections in May 2019, the latest Parliament Eurobarometer survey confirms citizens’ steadily growing support for and favourability of the European Union,” the report said.

Almost a third of respondents already today know the date of the European elections in 2019, it said, and 49 percent of EU citizens and 51 percent of Hungarians regard the vote as important, it added.

Featured image: www.facebook.com/EuropeanParliament

Opposition parties hold ‘constructive’ consultations on cooperation

opposition meeting

Opposition party representatives said consultations on Wednesday for cooperation in upcoming by-elections were “constructive and held amid a good atmosphere”.

Socialist representative in Budapest, Csaba Horváth, who initiated the meeting, said the participants were in agreement that further consultations will be held prior to all by-elections.

The aim is to run a single opposition candidate against the ruling Fidesz candidate, he added.

If the parties are unable to agree on a single candidate because there is more than one potential candidate with a good chance of being elected then a pre-selection procedure could be held, Horváth said. How this should happen is a work in progress and the by-elections of the upcoming period will help in finding a solution, he added.

Green opposition LMP’s representative at the talks, Péter Ungár, also said the meeting was constructive but he declined to reveal details.

LMP will take into consideration the proposals presented, and there is “considerable hope” that an agreement can be reached for the next upcoming by-election, he added.

Opposition Párbeszéd board member Márta V. Naszályi said the consultations gave reason for hope, and Hungarian Liberal Party’s Viktor Szabadai said cooperation was clearly necessary. Momentum board member Tamás Soproni said talks have already started on cooperation for the mayoral by-election in Budapest’s 8th district and he was hopeful a solution would be found.

Featured image: MTI

Election 2018 – Election Office rejects report of mass fraudulent registrations near Ukraine border

election

The National Election Office on Friday rejected recent press reports suggesting a sudden filing of thousands of residence registrations near the Ukraine border before the April 8 general election.

A total of 60 new permanent residents and 30 temporary residents have been registered in the villages in question since January 1 this year, the office said.

The number of residents in Botpalád, Csaholc, Fülesd, Kispalád, Milota, Sonkád and Zsarolyán, all belonging to the 4th constituency of Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg County, totalled 5,882 on Jan. 1 and 2,949 people cast their votes in these villages on April 8.

Citizens casting their vote in individual constituencies must have a permanent address in Hungary. Those without one can cast their vote for a national party list and are required to register before mailing their ballot.

featured image: MTI

Election 2018 – Democratic Coalition calls for repeated election in three constituencies

hungary election votes 2018

Leftist Democratic Coalition (DK) on Wednesday called on the National Election Office to order the election repeated in three constituencies where Ukrainian-Hungarian dual citizens were bussed to “systematically” to vote in the April 8 general election.

The Kúria, Hungary’s supreme court, has also ruled that the practice was against the law, Sándor Rónai, DK’s deputy spokesman, told the press. While the government campaigned with the slogan that “Hungary decides”, “masses of voters were imported from abroad”, Rónai said.

He estimated that several thousand Ukrainian Hungarians could have been bussed to three constituencies near the border, where 24,000-25,000 votes could amount to a win.

All election frauds have to be investigated, regardless of their perceived weight, he said.

featured image: MTI

Deputy leader of Jobbik is willing to step up and take Vona’s place

Hungary Election 2018 Fidesz Viktor Orbán

László Toroczkai, the deputy leader of Jobbik, who is also the hardline mayor of Ásotthalom, in southern Hungary, said on Thursday that he was open to becoming party leader if asked, local news portal delmagyar.hu reported.

Toroczkai was the founder of the far-right 64 Counties Youth Movement (HVIM) and has been banned from Serbia and Slovakia due to his views and activities. Last year he endorsed policies to ban pro-LGBT rights messages and Islamic religious practices in Ásotthalom.

On Monday Toroczkai posted a message on Facebook criticising his party for Sunday’s election outcome and the outgoing party leader. “Gábor Vona has failed but Jobbik lives on,” he said.

“But if Gábor Vona’s resignation is only a front … then he will execute Jobbik,” Toroczkai added in the post.

After attending a party board meeting of the party on Tuesday, he was asked by delmagyar.hu if he would accept the post of party leader. He said that if at least 20 percent of the member organisations nominated him, then he would “not run away from the task”.

He said a congress for the re-election of party officials is planned for the near future and he expected that all matters would be decided within a month.

Vona, who tried to take Jobbik in a more moderate direction, has ruled out running for the post of party leader at the congress.

featured image: MTI

Election 2018 – Putin and more congratulate Orbán

1848 Hungarian volunteers marched with 1,848-meter long Hungarian national flag in Budapest

Russian President Vladimir Putin, Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili and Bank of China chairman Chen Siqing have sent letters of congratulations to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán over his victory in Sunday’s general election, Orbán’s press chief said.

Kvirikashvili said: “I am extremely delighted to note that our relations and friendship, based upon mutual respect, understanding and far-sighted vision, are growing stronger in all areas of cooperation”.

Putin said that

Russian-Hungarian cooperation harboured significant potential and he expressed his belief that the further development of constructive bilateral relations served the interests of both countries and the whole of Europe,

Bertalan Havasi said.

Chen said he was pleased that Orbán had been re-elected yet again, adding that over the years, the Hungarian government had achieved “outstanding results” under Orbán’s leadership and Chinese-Hungarian relations had undergone “unprecedented development”.

featured image: MTI

Election 2018 – Former Socialist-Párbeszéd candidate Karácsony accuses government of listing so-called opponents

karácsony gergely socialist párbeszéd

No matter the size of Fidesz’s mandate, the ruling party is not authorised to intimidate its citizens, Gergely Karácsony, former PM candidate of the Socialist-Párbeszéd alliance, said on Thursday in reaction to business weekly Figyelő’s list of people whom it called “George Soros’s mercenaries”.

Figyelő “has stupidly listed citizens who do their jobs as members of civil groups, aren’t the enemies of anyone, except maybe poverty, corruption and riding roughshod over democracy”, Karácsony told a news conference.

He said anyone who saw such people as enemies proved that their real enemy was the “the desire of citizens to make the country better”.

Karácsony said that in the run-up to Hungary’s general election, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán had threatened the people and political parties who wanted change and had “talked about the 2,000 enemies of the Orbán regime“.

He said the Socialist-Párbeszéd alliance would use any political means it could to “put an end to the politics of intimidation“.

The former PM candidate called it a “strange twist of history” that the list had been published in a magazine owned by Maria Schmidt, director of the House of Terror Museum. That museum was established to present the horrors of the 20th century so nobody in Hungary should ever again have to be afraid of being on a government list, Karácsony said.

On another subject, Socialist Party group leader Bertalan Tóth told the same news conference that there were “many signs of Fidesz having systemically manipulated the outcome of the election”. He said these included the current election rules, the registration of so-called “bogus parties”, the changes made in the ownership structures of media companies and the registration of voters with “fictitious addresses”.

As a result of the changes made to the election rules, Fidesz will have a two-thirds majority in parliament “while only one-third of voters voted for them”, he said.

Tóth accused the National Election Office (NVI) of “hacking” the election on Sunday, noting that the NVI had to revert to an older version of its website after its current one crashed in the morning. Running the older website had increased security risks, he said.

featured image: www.facebook.com/KarácsonyGergely