election

Semjen hails success of ethnic Hungarians at Ukraine election

Daily News Hungary

Budapest, October 26 (MTI) – Zsolt Semjen, Hungary’s deputy prime minister, on Monday welcomed “the success of cooperation” within the Hungarian community of Transcarpathia, at Ukraine’s local elections held at the weekend.

Based on preliminary election results, Semjen said that ethnic Hungarian parties KMKSZ and UMDSZ have cleared the 5 percent threshold to delegate representatives to local councils.

Ukraine Hungarians have “understood the message of cooperation”, and those staying in Hungary did not stay away from the vote, Semjen said.

Ukraine’s largest ethnic Hungarian parties have for the first time set up joint lists to send representatives to the Transcarpathia Council as well as to local bodies.

Political Capital: Serious abuses are possible in the Hungarian elections

Daily News Hungary

According to Political Capital, electoral law needs to amend in several respects. The analyst company reports that if everything remains that way, fundamental rights are violated and serious abuses are possible. For example, deceased people will get letters and it cannot be controlled who votes and sends it back instead of them. The rules on restructuring of constituencies should also be modified, index.hu wrote.

Political Capital draws attention in connection with constituencies that the map should be re-drawn due to population movements, and therefore rules should be amended. By law, the population of constituencies cannot derivate from the average by 20% in any direction.

Already last year, 15% fewer people lived in four constituencies than the average (3 in Tolna county and one in Somogy), and 15% more people could vote in one (Pest 5th).

Voting by correspondence is only possible for citizens not having an address in Hungary, ie. for the Hungarians abroad. PC thinks there are more solutions to the residents abroad can vote the same way, like the extension of voting by correspondence or the full removal of it. Electronic voting could be also effective, but it is not so likely today.

One of the disadvantages of voting by correspondence is that you cannot verify who is voting. According to Political Capital, it is possible that anyone can send back the letter of a deceased person and the abuse will never be revealed. The analysts say a simple solution could be if National Election Office (NVI) asks the citizens to send back a document, and if they do, their registration will be reactivated, but only for the current election, index.hu wrote.

It makes difficult to look the campaigns transparently that, although parties start their campaigns months before the elections, the official campaign starts only fifty days before the selected date. That is, the parties do not have to report their spent millions before this period. It is also a problem that the parties can outsource the campaign to NGOs. OSCE previously named the posters of COF which clearly supported the campaign of Fidesz.

According to PC,  a part of the rules regarding to the elections campaign should be extended beyond the campaign period.

In many cases, there are suspicions that candidates, political parties copied the signatories’ data and forged their signatures. That is why, Political Capital says, electoral commissions and offices should have more licenses and longer deadlines to eliminate frauds.

based on the article of index.hu
translated by BA

Hungarian woman to lead the cleverest people of the world

According to index.hu, a Hungarian woman will lead Mensa with 130 thousand members, which brings together the most intelligent people of the world from July. The election of Bibiana Balanyi is a fantastic success, she triumphed over the candidates of national organizations with more members than the Hungarian one, in a strong competition, the communication said to MTI.

Bibiana’s been the member of Mensa HungarIQa Association since 1994 and she was the President for 10 years. From 2009, she was elected the Development Director of the international Mensa, she spent 4 years in this position, so she came to compete for the international President position with serious experience. In her campaign, she promised an organization more attractive for young people, the better understanding of the cultural differences and a new website. At the same time, it’s a privilege, challenge and responsibility that the majority of the world’s most intelligent people thought Bibiana is the appropriate representative of such a diverse, cross-cultural and cross-national organization.

She will take over the Presidency from her American predecessor on July 1, her term is two-year-long. Since the foundation of Mensa, she is the third female leader and the youngest President as well, index.hu said.

Mensa is an international association, which was founded in the UK in 1946. The aim of the non-political organization to bring together the highly intelligent people, regardless of their age, sex, origin or social status. The only criterion of the membership is the intelligence level typical of 2% of the people.

based on the article of index.hu
translated by BA

Photo: nava.hu

Orbán comments on Jobbik’s Tapolca by-election victory

Commenting on Jobbik’s Tapolca by-election victory Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said that it was a democratic electoral competition, and the decision voters took must be acknowledged and respected.

Related article: 
JOBBIK CANDIDATE IN LEAD IN BY-ELECTION

The Prime Minister, at the request of a journalist, expressed his opinion in connection with the rise of Jobbik saying that Fidesz finds it regrettable that people voted in favour of Jobbik, but they did so by “only a hair’s breadth”, and, at the same time, the decision voters took must be acknowledged and respected.

Orbán also said that unlike the nationalist radical party Jobbik, Fidesz sees Hungary as a part of Europe. “We offer a different path for Hungary to follow, we want Hungary to be tied with Europe and the world in a different way”, Orbán said in the city of Zalaegerszeg promoting the government’s Modern Cities scheme. “Our job is to make sure that people find our road map more attractive than Jobbik’s.”, he added.

According to Orbán, it is the people’s responsibility to determine their own future, and since we live in democracy, “they will make their decisions to the best of their knowledge, which decisions we must acknowledge.” He clarified that he can only take responsibility for Fidesz and the government, but what people think and which direction they will take, “what emotions they have in their hearts and what political decision they take” he cannot take any responsibility for.

Based on the article hirado.hu
Translated by Gábor Hajnal

Jobbik candidate in lead in by-election

Budapest (MTI) – The candidate of the radical nationalist Jobbik party Lajos Rig had a narrow lead over its Fidesz-Christian Democrat opponent Zoltan Fenyvesi in the Tapolca by-election in western Hungary on Sunday evening, with 99.13 percent of the votes counted.

The result is not yet final because votes will not be counted in one of the election districts tonight. The ballots cast there will be mixed with the ones cast in Hungary’s representation offices abroad.

The number of voters turning up for the ballot in this district exceeded the gap between the two candidates.

Rig scored 35.27 percent of the votes ahead of Fenyvesi (34.38 percent), Ferenc Pad, the joint candidate of the Socialists, the Democratic Coalition and the Hungarian Solidarity Movement (26.27 percent) and Barbara Sallee of the green LMP party (2.05 percent).

jobbik-tapolca-2

The final result is expected to be announced on Thursday.

Jobbik leader Gabor Vona hailed the result as a “historic victory”, stating that this was the first time that a political party which was not part of the “deceived and embezzled change in regime” won a parliamentary mandate in an individual constituency. If Jobbik managed to get this mandate in western Hungary, “it is worth pondering about what the situation could be in eastern Hungary,” he added, referring to his party’s stronghold.

Fidesz leader and Prime Minister Viktor Orban thanked for the efforts of Fenyvesi and Fidesz-KDNP’s activists on his Facebook page and said “there are instances when the ball rebounds from the goal-post”.

Socialist leader Jozsef Tobias said the outcome of the by-election shows that a new situation has emerged in Hungarian politics. Fidesz must now make it clear whether it stands on the side of democracy in which there are rivalries and disputes, but dedication to European values and respect for human lives and values are never questioned, he added. He said Fidesz would be unable to shape the future if it fails to dissociate itself from lawmakers who make openly anti-Semitic and anti-Roma remarks.

The by-election was held to decide who takes up the parliamentary mandate of Jeno Lasztovicza, of the ruling Fidesz party, who died in January 2015.

PM canvasses voters in Tapolca by-election – Opposition reactions

Budapest (MTI) – Prime Minister Viktor Orban today met voters ahead of a Sunday by-election in the voting district of Tapolca, western Hungary, encouraging them to cast their ballots for the ruling Fidesz-KDNP party alliance.

He told public television that the ruling parties were proud of their achievements in the area, such as reducing the unemployment rate in the town of Ajka to some 3 percent.

“This is a local success, the result of the work of local leadership and the help of the government’s policies,” Orban said. “There is no reason for us to think that the residents Ajka will be hostile to us [in the election],” he added.

Orban said he had held talks with the mayor of nearby Sumeg about developments. “Projects worth several hundred million forints and hundreds of jobs could come out of these plans,” he said, mentioning an upgrade of Sumeg Castle and investments in the food industry as examples. The government will discuss these plans in the next two weeks, he said.

Jozsef Tobias, the leader of the opposition Socialists, said in Ajka that Sunday’s ballot would be about whether or not the future of the region and the country can be changed.

“There’s something at stake in each and every ballot,” Tobias told a press conference. The Socialist programme, forged in close cooperation with local communities, “offers a real alternative to the policies of the current government,” he added, highlighting the difficulties of the average wage-earner and their lack of protection.

A Fidesz spokesman complained that left-wing provocateurs had disrupted Orban’s campaign speech in Tapolca earlier in the day. Bence Tuzson said several dozen protesters booed Orban and shouted “he’s lying”. Tuzson accused Csaba Czegledy, a former lawyer for Ferenc Gyurcsany, the leader of the leftist Democratic Coalition, of having been behind the protest.

vona-jobbik-hungaryRadical nationalist Jobbik party leader Gabor Vona accused both the Socialists and Fidesz of corruption, at a press conference ahead of the party’s public forum in Ajka. He said “when Jobbik enters government in 2018 or even before,” it will focus on the fight against corruption as a primary task. He added that Orban’s visit in Tapolca was “strange and lacking in credibility”, as if the prime minister only now realised now that the hospital of Tapolca is important.

The by-election will take place in the Tapolca ward in Veszprem County on April 12. The ballot will be held for the mandate of the late Fidesz lawmaker Jeno Lasztovicza.

The National Election Committee rejects complaint over Fidesz campaign

Daily News Hungary

Budapest (MTI) – The National Election Committee (NVB) on Monday threw out an appeal objecting the ruling Fidesz-Christian Democrat alliance’s campaign in an upcoming by-election in western Hungary.

Related article:
Jobbik on Tapolca election: Fidesz to end hate campaign

In its decision, the committee said that pledges made in an election campaign are “governed by the freedom of expression”. The committe said that the basis for those pledges and whether they can be realised “cannot be verified” and the “nominating organisations’ legal liability cannot be established”. The committee added that the objected campaign activities are not likely to mislead voters, therefore they do not violate equality between candidates or the organisations fielding them.

The by-election will take place in the Tapolca ward in Veszprem county on April 12. The ballot will be held for the mandate of the late Fidesz lawmaker Jeno Lasztovicza.

Analysts: Veszprem result offers no prediction at national level

Daily News Hungary

Budapest (MTI) – The results of the by-election in western Hungary’s Veszprem cannot be extrapolated to a national level, political analysts polled by MTI said.

Related article:
Opposition left-wing candidate wins Veszprem by-election

Similarly, the result of another by-election at nearby Tapolca in April is impossible to predict from the election win of the independent candidate backed by the leftist parties in Veszprem, the analysts told a conference organised by the Republikon Institute on Tuesday evening.

Zoltan Kesz, the independent candidate backed by the left-wing parties won Sunday’s by-election in Veszprem with over 44 percent of votes cast. Lajos Nemedi, the candidate of the governing Fidesz-Christian-Democrat alliance, received just over 33 percent.

Agoston Mraz, senior analyst at Nezopont Institute, said one of the lessons of Sunday’s by-election in Veszprem was one of activity. The left had achieved better results at turning out the vote, while Fidesz was only able to get 40 percent of its earlier voters to go to the polls, Mraz said. For Jobbik this rate was 53 percent while the left got more votes than in the general election in spring last year, he said.

The left, “defying its traditions”, had appeared more united, he said. Internal disputes within Fidesz on the other hand had made government-loyal voters inactive, he added.

The campaign of the radical nationalist Jobbik party was weak as was their candidate, and the strategy of a more moderate “toned-down radicalism” did not succeed, Mraz said.

Tibor Zavecz, analyst at Ipsos, gave warning against interpreting the local by-election results at a national level. He said however that it is safe to say Fidesz had “probably lost hundreds of thousands of voters”. He also noted that earlier suggestions that the left had disappeared in rural areas and was ousted by Jobbik were not validated.

Julia Lakatos, analyst at the Meltanyossag Centre, noted that Fidesz had not lost a by-election in 14 years and said this trend was broken by by-election losses in Ujpest and Veszprem. The latter result she called a surprise, but said it was difficult to use this result for predicting the future. Lakatos said by-elections could “strengthen the quality of democracy” from time to time.

Kesz: Veszprem “city of common sense”

Budapest, February 23 (MTI) – Zoltan Kesz, the independent candidate backed by the left-wing parties, said after his by-election win on Sunday that “Veszprem voters have done what the country had asked of them”.

Kesz won Sunday’s by-election in western Hungary with 44.76 percent of the votes cast. Lajos Nemedi, the candidate of the governing Fidesz-Christian-Democrat alliance, received 33.64 percent of the votes, Andrea Varga-Damm, backed by the radical nationalist Jobbik party, won 14.14 percent and Ferenc Gerstmar of the green LMP party 4.57 percent.

Kesz told a press conference after the election win that Veszprem will be known as the “the city of common sense” from now on.

“I feel responsibility to give real criticism to the power-holders and I will,” he said.

Fidesz congratulated the winner in a statement and thanked its activists and voters.

Nemedi told a press conference late on Sunday that the results must be acknowledged and work must continue.

Jozsef Tobias, the leader of the Socialists’ local chapter, said the election was an example of “new social cooperation”. It is now clear that the Socialists can work together with civil organisations, while “insular” parties are doomed to failure, he said.

The leftist opposition Democratic Coalition (DK) said the victory was a “message of change”, while Viktor Szigetvari, leader of the opposition Egyutt (Together) party, said the result returned hope that Hungarian politics can be built on “straight talk and honesty”.

The opposition Dialogue for Hungary (PM) called for early elections, insisting that Fidesz had lost the “moral ground” for governing.

The local representative of Jobbik said the results were “not a victory for the left but a debacle for Fidesz”.

The by-election was held to decide who takes up the parliamentary mandate of Tibor Navracsics, of the ruling Fidesz party, who became an EU commissioner in October last year.

Kesz’s election victory also means that the Fidesz-KDNP alliance will no longer have a two-thirds majority in parliament even if the government parties retain their mandate at an upcoming by-election in Tapolca on April 12.

Photo: MTI

Opposition left-wing candidate wins Veszprem by-election

Budapest, February 22 (MTI) – Zoltan Kesz, the independent candidate backed by the left-wing parties won Sunday’s by-election in Veszprem, in western Hungary, based on processing 92.39 percent of the votes.

Data available on the National Election Office’s website show Zoltan Kesz won 43.14 percent of the votes cast.

Lajos Nemedi, the candidate of the governing Fidesz-Christian-Democrat alliance, received 33.4 percent of the votes, Andrea Varga-Damm, backed by the radical nationalist Jobbik party, won 13.86 percent and Ferenc Gerstmar of the green LMP party 4.62 percent.

The by-election was held to decide who takes up the parliamentary mandate of Tibor Navracsics, of the ruling Fidesz party, who became an EU commissioner in October, 2014.

Kesz’s election victory also means that the Fidesz-KDNP alliance will no longer have a two-thirds majority in parliament even if the government parties retain their mandate at an upcoming by-election in Tapolca on April 12.

Photo: MTI

Egyutt calls for amending Hungary election rules

Budapest, February 3 (MTI) – The opposition Egyutt (Together) party has initiated consultations on changing Hungarian election rules.

The current rules violate the principles of democracy and equal opportunities in several points, as expressed by several Hungarian and international monitoring organisations, senior party officials said on Tuesday.

Egyutt proposes amending the rules of nomination, campaign financing, legal remedy, data protection and the placement of state ads, they said.

Deputy party leader Viktor Szigetvari as well as Zsuzsanna Szelenyi and Szabolcs Szabo, who sit as independent lawmakers, asked in a letter Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Fidesz group leader Antal Rogan to start consultations with the broadest range of political players so that election rules “be put in order” already this year.

“The rules should be changed during this governing cycle so that the next elections scheduled for 2018 be fair, as against the ones held in 2014,” they said.

Fidesz’s parliamentary group in response said they always stand ready for a sound and reasonable dialogue, and, if need be, for further amending the election rules.

However, it is pathetic that “the political left still blames Hungarian voters and the election system itself for their own downfall in past elections,” the group said in a statement.

Veszprem to open campaign for by-election

Budapest (MTI) – Candidates in the by-election in western Hungary’s Veszprem can start collecting signatures of support from voters today, ahead of the election on February 22.

The vote is necessitated by Tibor Navracsics having vacated his seat in order to take up his new post of European commissioner. The opposition parties hope to win the seat in order to deprive the ruling Fidesz party of its two-thirds majority.

The National Election Committee has registered 16 parties so far that would run in the election.

Candidates need 500 signatures to enter the election, which they can collect in the next two weeks.

Fundamental Rights Center finds OSCE Hungary report inaccurate

Daily News Hungary

Budapest, September 29 (MTI) – A July report by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) in Europe on Hungary’s latest general election contains several inaccurate observations, the Center for Fundamental Rights, a think-tank of young lawyers and law students, said today.

The report, prepared by OSCE’s Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, said that the election had been administered in a well-organised way but campaign rules were restrictive, the media biased, and there was a blurred line between the state and political parties in campaign activities which ensured the ruling Fidesz party an unfair advantage.

In a statement, the center said that Hungary’s election laws had been passed well before the election, and the opposition had ample opportunity to put forward their position. The statement also insisted that a system of compensation votes added to the winner did not distort the final result of the election.

The current electoral system is “relatively more disproportionate” than before, but this arose from “changes in the proportions of individual mandates” rather than from the compensations system, it said. “The new system does not benefit a certain political group but the more popular force.” It added that the ruling parties would have won 61 percent of all mandates in the old election system.

In the April 2014 general election, the ruling Fidesz-Christian Democratic alliance secured 133 seats in Hungary’s 199-member parliament, scoring a two-thirds majority.

The think-tank said that the Constitutional Court had not been banned from referring to their earlier decisions and that the electoral districts had not been changed right before the elections but back in 2011. The list of voters living in other countries could not be manipulated, as suggested in the OSCE report. Similarly, voters casting their ballot abroad did not suffer any discrimination, it added.

The independence of the National Election Office has strengthened compared to its predecessor, and regulations ensuring balanced information to the public are adequate, the think-tank said in its statement.

Jobbik: OSCE report shows election campaign conditions discriminatory

A final report by the election observation mission of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) shows that campaign conditions were discriminatory against the opposition Jobbik, the party said on Friday.

The report issued last Friday contains numerous arguments demonstrating that ruling Fidesz managed to repeatedly win a two-thirds majority at the election “due to an unjust election law that fit its own purposes,” Jobbik said in a statement.

Starting from the provisions for the surplus votes of winning candidates to alterations to constituency boundaries and to discrimination against voters living abroad who had permanent Hungarian residence, almost all newly introduced features in the election law worked to the favour of the ruling parties, Jobbik added.

According to the statement, the OSCE report made special mention of the disadvantageous treatment of Jobbik and included several examples showing that Jobbik faced strong headwind during the campaign. Jobbik was often intentionally left out from news broadcasts and received only minimum coverage in several media outlets, it added.

“All the above increases the value of the results we achieved because even amidst such circumstances we managed to win the trust of one million voters,” MP Tibor Bana, Jobbik’s delegate to the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, said.

“We are eagerly waiting for Fidesz’s responses to the report’s observations,” he added.

According to the report, the general election was “efficiently administered” and offered voters a “diverse choice”, but the ruling Fidesz party enjoyed an “undue advantage” due to “restrictive” campaign rules and “biased media coverage”. A number of key amendments adopted had negative effects on the electoral process, including removal of some checks and balances, the report said.

April general election “efficiently edministered” but several shortcomings – OSCE

(MTI) – Hungary’s April 6 general election was “efficiently administered” and offered voters a “diverse choice”, the OSCE said in a report on its election observation mission.

But the ruling Fidesz party enjoyed an “undue advantage” due to “restrictive” campaign rules and “biased media coverage”, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe said, commenting on a limited observation mission carried out by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights.

A number of key amendments adopted had negative effects on the electoral process, including removal of some checks and balances, the report seen by MTI on Saturday said.

“Significant elements of the electoral system were altered, including provisions for the surplus votes of winning candidates in each constituency to be transferred to parties participating in the national, proportional contest. This change itself resulted in an additional six seats being allocated to the alliance of Fidesz,” the report said.

At the same time, the OSCE noted that the candidate registration process was “inclusive” and the national election committee “registered 18 party and joint party lists with a total of 1,607 candidates, including 378 women, for the 93 seats distributed through a nationwide proportional system.”

The leftist opposition Socialists said the OSCE’s report provided evidence “on paper” that Fidesz’s two-thirds majority in parliament was not legitimate. The lack of fair elections overshadows the whole legislative cycle, the Socialists said in a statement on Saturday.

The opposition E-PM party alliance said it would submit amendments to election laws after the local elections in the autumn. These will be drawn up “point by point” based on the OSCE’s report and on experiences of the local election, the party said in a statement.

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