The compromise by European leaders on the EU embargo of Russian oil “is acceptable but it will not promote a shift to green energy”, Péter Ungár, group leader of opposition LMP, told a press conference on Tuesday.
As we wrote today, European Union leaders agreed late on Monday to ban two-thirds of Russian oil imports as part of a compromise deal that increases pressure on Russia while taking into account the economic impact on EU countries more dependent on Russian oil supplies. Orbán’s reaction HERE.
The agreement will ensure that none of the member states’ economies suffer serious damage, though “dependence on Russian fossil fuels will be replaced by … dependence on fossil fuels from the United States, Canada, and Arab states,” Ungar said.
Financing for adapting refineries to cater for oil from other countries should instead be spent on developing alternative energy sources, he argued.
Ungár said he supported “cutting funds which indirectly finance Russia’s military operations”, but the position of “leaders who struck energy deals with Russia after the annexation of Crimea in 2014” was “hypocritical” in this regard.
Ungár also slammed other Hungarian opposition politicians who, he insisted, “naively watched” developments in the EU.
The decisions by EU member states were “not made based on moral considerations” but on national interests influenced by industrial lobbies, and they often used Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s veto policy as cover.
Parties of the opposition have criticised the government for its Wednesday decision to make certain large companies pay a part of their extra profits to a new public utility cut fund and a defence fund.
The Democratic Coalition said the government was seeking to make residents pay for its “ill-advised policies and reckless corruption”. In a statement, the party said it was “obvious” that energy and telecommunications companies, banks and airlines would raise revenues to pay a new tax through raising their prices.
“PM Orban’s new taxes will be paid by the Hungarian people,” it said.
Radical Mi Hazánk (Our Homeland) said the government had implemented Mi Hazánk’s earlier proposal, but “it will not impose a tax on its own oligarchs”. During the coronavirus pandemic, Mi Hazánk demanded a supertax to be levied on large international companies such as tech firms, large chains, pharmaceuticals and casinos. The government, however, has
“opted to indebt the next generations through amassing the state debt rather than levying a tax on multinationals”,
the party said. Pharmaceuticals and casinos “associated with the oligarchs of (ruling) Fidesz” have been left unaffected by the new measure, they said.
LMP said it supported that companies with extra profits should take a larger part of the public burden. It said, however, that a third fund should also have been established and financed by companies making profits on polluting and fossil fuels. This fund could be used to finance insulation projects and renewable energy developments, the party said.
Conservative Jobbik said in time of crisis “everybody should bear the public burden”. “The problem is that the government allowed an opportunity for banks to transfer the costs of a special banking tax and transaction duty to customers”, Jobbik’s deputy leader Dániel Z. Kárpát said on Facebook, adding that the new measures should not impose new burdens on families.
Fidesz “expects traders to pay a contribution but it will not reach into its own pockets by, for example, eliminating the VAT on basic food products,”
he added. Socialist Party co-leader Bertalan Tóth said on Facebook that “oligarchs” associated with the ruling parties should not be exempted from the new windfall taxes. According to the Socialists, the new taxes should also be used to reduce taxes on wages while the VAT on basic foods should be reduced to 5 percent and the poorest should be given food tickets.
LMP believes spending on environmental protection isn’t “money thrown out the window”, but goes toward “the protection of our present and future, our children and civilization”, the co-chair of the opposition party said at a press conference streamed on Facebook on Sunday.
Speaking on the International Day for Biological Diversity, Erzsébet Schmuck noted that over 90 percent of the natural floodplains of Hungarian rivers have been lost, while the biological diversity of natural protection areas is “slowly, but surely” on the decline.
She pointed to the “ecological catastrophe caused by human irresponsibility” on the Sajó river, which flows from Slovakia into Hungary, resulting in “the destruction of an entire ecosystem”.
She also said ladybug and swallow populations are “radically falling” because of “deforestation and a reduction in green areas because of environmental pollution, cities, roads, industrial plants and luxury investments”.
Schmuck said LMP politicians have tabled a number of proposals in parliament in the past decade that serve to protect the biological diversity of the Carpathian Basin.
“There isn’t much time left,” she warned, “The question is whether the current powers understand what is at stake”.
“When you’ve cut down the last tree, when you’ve caught the last fish, you’ll realise that you can’t eat money,” she added.
Opposition LMP wants to allocate 300 billion forints (EUR 780m) for energy efficiency programmes, including installing insulation, changing windows and upgrading heating systems, MP Bernadett Bakos said at a press conference streamed on Facebook on Saturday.
Hungarians could be shielded from the current energy crisis by developing renewable energy sources and improving energy efficiency, Bakos said. Hungary’s energy dependence could be improved “to a large degree” by cutting energy consumption, but that will require a “genuine, green utilities price reduction scheme”, she added.
She said between 100,000 and 150,000 homes could be insulated and get energy efficiency upgrades with 300 billion forints.
Opposition LMP has called on the government to increase without delay the wages of public sector employees to compensate for inflation.
LMP co-leader Máté Kanász-Nagy told a press conference on Tuesday that a wage increase scheme was needed to close the gap between wages in the public sector and the private sector.
He said that
public sector wages lagged behind considerably, citing social workers and career-starting teachers taking home around 170,000 forints (EUR 460) per month as against 310,000 forints by toolmakers and 270,000 by electricians.
He added that
the value of public sector wages dropped by around 4 percent as a result of inflation this year and the drop is 10 percent based on the increase in food prices.
Inflation boosts government revenues, giving the cabinet enough room for manoeuvre, he said.
As we wrote last week, the green LMP party wants the rapid implementation of strong measures to reduce car traffic in Budapest, and advocates the introduction of a congestion charge as well as a car-free embankment on the Pest side of the city, read more HERE.
The green LMP party on Sunday called for immediate wage compensation and a mid-term pay rise programme for public sector employees because of inflation.
Máté Kanász-Nagy, the party’s co-leader, told a press conference that average inflation is close to 9 percent according to the latest data published by the Central Statistical Office earlier this week.
Inflation has hit its highest level in the past 20 years,
he said.
This particularly affects public sector employees, who have lower average incomes than those working in the private sector and spend a higher portion of their income on food, he said.
Kanász-Nagy cited the prices of some food products as examples. He said
the price of margarine increased by 38 percent from a year earlier, and the price of bread and poultry rose by almost 30 percent.
He said inflation had a twofold effect, arguing that it hit lower-income earners while the state had more revenue from value added tax, giving the government room for manoeuvre to offset the price increases.
He urged an immediate wage compensation of at least the inflation rate, that is close to 10 percent, for public sector workers, adding that a mid-term pay rise programme should also be launched for them to reduce the income gap with private sector employees.
The green LMP party wants the rapid implementation of strong measures to reduce car traffic in Budapest, and advocates the introduction of a congestion charge as well as a car-free embankment on the Pest side of the city, a party lawmaker said on Friday.
Bernadett Bakos said the partial closure to car traffic along the embankment was a half-hearted solution, and she called for whole of the banks of the Danube in Pest to be made pedestrian- and bike-friendly.
She also rejected the Budapest mayor’s insistence that the congestion charge would be untimely, adding that Gergely Karácsony’s had made the charge a plank of his election manifesto.
“It would be high time for at least one impact study, you would think,”
The charge should be graduated to reflect when congestion and air pollution are higher, and revenues raised should be used for public transport, Bakos said. Also, a plan is needed to dampen traffic throughout the city, she added.
She noted that a congestion charge was temporarily introduced in Stockholm only to be confirmed later by a referendum.
After their failure in the April general election, the coalition of opposition parties has fallen apart and, with the exception of the Democratic Coalition led by Ferenc Gyurcsány, the rivalling parties are in a state of crisis, according to an analysis of opinion polls carried out by the Twenty-First Century Institute published on Thursday.
Relative newcomer Momentum has been “struggling with a permanent leadership crisis”, the think-tank said. Founding member and former leader András Fekete-Győr still dominates the party and as group leader “he will put his stamp on the party” while the departure of Anna Donáth as Momentum’s leader “will cause
uncertainty and managerial instability.”
The think-tank cited “information in the opposition press” suggesting an active connection between Gyurcsány’s party and the youthful Momentum movement. Gyurcsány wants to form a DK-Momentum coalition similar to the pre-2010 Socialist-Liberal coalition, it added.
Both LMP and Párbeszéd identify as green parties, the analysis said, but “they can hardly be called real parties as they lack a mass base and are led by media politicians”. LMP’s leadership, it added, was “quite unstable”, while the co-leaders of Párbeszéd indicated after the election that they would not run for office. Due to the uneasy election cooperation between the two green parties, environmental politics and their party identities have faded, the think-tank said.
Regarding the conservative Jobbik party, the Twenty-First Century Institute said the party’s had
lost its nationalist credentials after teaming up with the left wing and taking up its positions on key international issues,
including relations with Hungarians beyond the border and the European Union. “The party is intellectually vacant,” the think-tank said.
Even though Jobbik recorded “its biggest loss” in the general election, Péter Jakab was re-elected leader at a recent party conference by a dwindling number of delegates, indicating a shrinking party organisation and membership. As radical party Mi Hazánk entered parliament for the first time, Jobbik’s room for manoeuvre has narrowed, and it will be impossible for it to return to its former right-wing narrative, the institute said.
Only the Democratic Coalition is stable and free of a leadership crisis,
according to the think-tank. It is the sole party with a stable organisational hinterland and the resources to develop a strong opposition policy, it added.
Green opposition LMP has submitted to parliament a draft decree rejecting the initiative of leading international companies to exempt products made with new gene technologies from tight EU regulations in force on genetically modified products, the group leader of the party said on Wednesday.
“One hears about attempts aimed at bringing food of unknown origin to the table of Hungarians,” Péter Ungár told a press conference.
Örs Tetlák, an LMP board member, told the same press conference that multinational chemical and seed companies are lobbying regulators to change GMO rules and allow their new GMO technology products to be exempted. Those companies also seek exemption from rules on GMO labelling, he said.
“The European Commission seems to yield to the multi-s with which they put food security at risk,” Tetlák said.
Ungár said that LMP’s draft decree also calls for increasing domestic and EU funding for green farming.
Hungary’s lawmakers took their oaths on Monday at the start of the new parliamentary cycle.
The ruling Fidesz-Christian Democrat alliance has 135 seats in parliament, the Democratic Coalition has 15 seats, while Jobbik, Momentum and the Socialists have 10 each. The radical Mi Hazánk (Our Homeland) party, which passed the parliamentary threshold for the first time in 2022, has garnered six mandates, as did Párbeszéd. The green LMP party has five seats. The German minority has one seat, and one lawmaker is expected to sit in the 199-member parliament as an independent.
The new parliament’s inaugural session was opened by President János Áder.
Journalists and guests were allowed into Parliament amid tight security measures.
Lawmakers of the opposition Democratic Coalition (DK) and Momentum parties left the session immediately after the oath-taking ceremony.
Momentum said on Facebook ahead of the session that its lawmakers had taken an “alternative oath” to serve the “entire society rather than a small privileged elite.”
Ákos Hadházy, who has won a mandate as an independent, did not appear at the ceremony, and is not yet entitled to exercise his rights as a lawmaker.
A body comprising the oldest and youngest members of parliament has found all mandates complies with regulations.
Parliament then certified the mandates unanimously, with 196 votes in favour.
Máté Kocsis, the group leader of ruling Fidesz, reacting to the walk-out by DK and Momentum lawmakers, said
parliament was their “workplace” and they must take their work as seriously as they would in any other workplace.
The work of a lawmaker is regulated by the Hungarian constitution and parliamentary law, Kocsis said on Facebook, adding that a lawmaker who disregards the law and only cares about being paid is unworthy of his or her parliamentary position.
Full-time caregivers of their own family members perform work and should therefore be entitled to an income of at least the minimum wage, leaders of the opposition LMP party said on Sunday, marking International Labour Day.
“On the occasion of Labour Day we can declare that we still regard the state as the worst employer because it has failed to recognise social workers by providing them due remuneration,” LMP’s co-leaders and parliamentary group leader said in a joint statement.
Back in 2004, when the now ruling Fidesz party was in opposition it pledged to recognise in-home care as a form of employment, they said. “But even being in power for the past 12 years has not been enough for Fidesz to deliver on its promise,” they added.
Increasing the amount to be paid for in-home care would cost the central budget 45 billion forints (EUR 119m) annually, which the party’s leaders said was “an insignificant amount”. They demanded that the government increase payment to people who provide in-home care to a family member other than a child.
The ruling Fidesz-Christian Democrat (KDNP) parties would win 56 percent of the votes, while the united opposition would garner 34 percent if the elections were held this Sunday, the daily Magyar Nemzet said citing a recent poll by the Nézőpont Institute.
According to the representative poll conducted over the phone on a sample of 1,000 adults, the radical Mi Hazánk (Our Homeland) party would again pass the parliamentary threshold with 5 percent of the votes, and the Two-tailed dog party would win 3 percent, Nézőpont said.
Meanwhile, if the parties of the united opposition ran independently, only the Momentum Movement (6 percent) and the Democratic Coalition (5 percent) would make it to parliament, the pollster said. Jobbik would garner 3 percent, while the Socialists and LMP around one percent. Support for an independent Párbeszéd party is negligible, Nézőpont said.
Christian Democratic politics is the best way to guarantee respect, dialogue and cooperation within the nation, the only way to “personal fulfilment and the nation’s prosperity”, the leader of the Christian Democratic Party’s (KDNP) parliamentary group said on Saturday.
Marking the Memorial Day of the Victims of the Hungarian Holocaust, István Simicskó said in a statement that Hungary’s government was working to ensure the peace and security of Hungarians. Stability and consistency are particularly important in view of the war in neighbouring Ukraine, he said.
April 16 was declared the Memorial Day of the Victims of the Hungarian Holocaust because the ghettoisation of Hungarian Jewry started on this day in 1944,
Simicskó said. “That shameful procedure led to deportations, and ultimately to the death of hundreds of thousands of our compatriots,” he said.
The commemoration is to show respect to the victims but also a way to educate younger generations on experiences of the past, he said.
In a separate statement, opposition LMP said the Holocaust was “the eternal shame of humanity”. The party “remembers with respect the victims of the holocaust,” the statement signed by co-leaders Erzsébet Schmuck and Mate Kanász-Nagy said.
The death of hundreds of thousands of innocent people is
a “family tragedy for the Hungarian nation,”
the statement said.
“We shall not forget the victims, and we shall honour their memory by making sure that such atrocities never happen again. Therefore, we must build society on solidarity, responsibility for each other and future generations, and the unconditional respect for human dignity,” the statement said.
Today is the general election and the child protection referendum in Hungary. PM Orbán believes that voters have to decide whether to enter the Ukrainian war or stay out of it. Meanwhile, the joint opposition says Hungary should decide whether to belong to the East or the West.
Prime ministerial candidate of the united opposition Péter Márki-Zay is responsible for the defeat of the opposition, Jobbik leader Péter Jakab said, reacting to the outcome of Sunday’s general election in which Fidesz won a fourth successive supermajority. Read also HERE.
This is Gyurcsány’s opinion on the election defeat
Read here the reaction of Ferenc Gyurcsány, leader of the opposition Democratic Coalition, to Sunday’s parliamentary election results, in which Fidesz won a supermajority for the fourth time in a row. Details HERE.
PM Orbán wins fourth successive term with landslide victory!
Hungary’s Fidesz-led alliance, which has held office for the past twelve years, won a fourth successive term in Sunday’s election amid a high turnout of 69.49 percent, and was on course to win 135 seats in the 199-seat parliament, keeping its two-thirds majority, while United for Hungary, a coalition of opposition parties which had harboured high hopes of unseating Viktor Orbán’s government by joining together, fell well short of a mandate to govern. Read details HERE.
Projected share of parliament seats with 81.29 pc of votes counted
Hungary’s Fidesz-led alliance, which has held office for the past twelve years, appears set for a two-thirds majority in Hungary’s 199-seat parliament with 81.29 percent of the votes counted. Projected share of party parliamentary seats according to National Election Office data:
1. FIDESZ-KDNP: individual constituencies: 88, national list: 47, total: 135, share of parliamentary seats: 67.84 percent.
2. UNITED OPPOSITION: individual constituencies: 18, national list: 39, total: 57, share of parliamentary seats: 28.64 percent.
3. MI HAZÁNK: individual constituencies: 0, national list: 7, total: 7, share of parliamentary seats: 3.52 percent.
Opposition PM candidate Péter Márki-Zay concedes victory to Fidesz
Péter Márki-Zay, the prime ministerial candidate of the united opposition, on Sunday evening conceded victory in the general election to Hungary’s ruling Fidesz party. “I am stunned just like everyone else,” Márki-Zay said at the City Park Ice Rink in Budapest. “I don’t want to hide my disappointment and my sadness; we would never have thought that this would be the outcome.”
Márki-Zay said the conditions in the election were “extremely unequal”, adding, however, that the opposition was not disputing the result, “only that it was a democratic and free race”.
Salvini first to hail Orbán win
Matteo Salvini, the leader of Italy’s League party, congratulated Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on his election win in a Facebook post late on Sunday.
“Bravo Viktor! Alone against everyone, attacked by the fanatics of uniform thinking, threatened by those wanting to eradicate the Judeo-Christian roots of Europe, slandered by those wanting to eliminate values such as the family, security, merit, development, solidarity and freedomŁ; you won again thanks to what everyone else is lacking: the people’s love and support. Go Viktor, and respect to the free Hungarian people,” Salvini said. The League party said Salvini also sent a personal letter to Orbán.
Orban declares ‘huge victory’
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán declared a “huge victory” for the Fidesz-Christian Democrat alliance on Sunday after Hungary’s electorate returned Fidesz to power for another four years. “We’ve secured a huge victory, so big in fact that you can see it from the Moon, and certainly from Brussels,” Orbán said at the Balna Centre on the Pest side of the River Danube, the site where Fidesz awaited the results.
“We’re looking pretty good; we’re looking better and better, perhaps we’ve never looked as good as we’re looking tonight,” he said. Orbán also reassured ethnic Hungarians in western Ukraine’s Transcarpathia region that the motherland was “with them”, telling them to “hang in there” and not to be afraid.
Results after 57.64 pc of votes counted
Following are the results of votes cast for national party lists in Sunday’s general election with 57.64 percent of the votes counted:
1. FIDESZ-KDNP (55.75 percent, 1,059,445 votes)
2. UNITED OPPOSITION (32.55 percent, 618,523 votes)
3. MI HAZÁNK (6.50 percent, 123,509 votes)
4. TWO-TAILED DOG PARTY (2.88 percent, 54,760 votes)
5. SOLUTION MOVEMENT (1.04 percent, 19,684 votes)
6. PARTY FOR A NORMAL LIFE (0.77 percent, 14,688 votes)
Latest poll says Orbán will win 122 to 77
Medián, a Hungarian pollster, shared today evening the results of its latest poll. According to them, Fidesz will have 122 mandates (61.3 pc), and the joint opposition will get 77. Fidesz will get 49 pc on its national list, while the joint opposition only 41 pc. Moreover, neither Mi Hazánk (Our Homeland), nor the Magyar Kétfarkú Kutya Párt (Two-Tailed Dog Party) will reach the 5 pc threshold (4.5%, 4.5%) – portfolio.hu reported.
According to MTI, if Medián is right, the leftist Democratic Coalition will win 21 seats, conservative Jobbik 16, the liberal Momentum Movement 15, the Socialists 12, the small liberal Párbeszéd party 8 and green LMP 5 seats.
PM chief of staff: High turnout ‘win for democracy’
Turnout in the 2022 general election is expected to be a whisker below the level of four years ago, the prime minister’s chief of staff has said, adding the high turnout was “a win for democracy”. Speaking after voting officially ended on Sunday, Gergely Gulyás said Hungarian democracy was always robust whenever the “civic-Christian Democrat-centre-right government” held office. The high turnout, he added, gave the new parliament a strong mandate.
Most polling stations have already closed, he said, and the rest were expected to finish processing voting soon after. Gulyás thanked all voters who participated in the election, regardless of their party preference, and the “tens of thousands” of election volunteers. Some 100,000 pro-government activists worked in the past days to mobilise as many voters as possible, he said.
He also thanked the opposition for its proposal to organise the referendum on child protection on the same day as the general election. Regarding the results, Gulyás said the forecasts “give us cause for optimism, but we will only announce the results once every single vote is counted,” he said. Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjén thanked Hungarians living beyond the borders for their “faithfulness to the nation”, adding that many more participated in the ballot than four years ago.
Election office expects to start publishing results after 9 pm
National Election Office (NVI) chief Attila Nagy has said the office expects to start publishing preliminary election results after 9 pm. Voting has ended in all localities with just a few people still queueing at some polling stations to cast their ballots, Nagy told at a press conference. He noted that the results announced on Sunday will be considered provisional.
Gerrymandering?
24.hu published today a map showing that a vote in the Fidesz dominated country constituencies counts much less than a vote in the capital or in the municipals. For example, in Tolna county, 60 thousand citizens elect one MP. Meanwhile, that number is almost 100,000 in the constituencies around Budapest.
Voting officially ends (7 pm GMT)
Voting in the general election and the referendum held in Hungary’s 3,154 localities and in Budapest’s 23 districts officially ended on Sunday at 7 pm. People still queuing at voting stations when the polls closed could still cast their vote. Once the voting ends, counting committees immediately start to sort and count the votes – MTI reported.
Voting ended at 86 foreign representations by 7 pm Hungarian time, the National Election Office (NVI) said. Of the 15,548 registered voters, 8,303 (53.4pc) voted in the general election and 8,196 (52.7pc) in the referendum on child protection, the NVI said. The results will only be announced once all constituencies have completed the count.
Here is the badge first voters receive
Photo: MTI
Turnout (at 6:30 pm GMT)
By 6.30 pm on Sunday, 67.8 percent of Hungary’s voters, 5,216,424 people, had cast their ballots in the general election, the National Election Office (NVI) said. Turnout at 6.30 pm was highest (72.49pc) in Vas County, in western Hungary, and lowest (62.19pc) in Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén, in the north. Turnout in Budapest was 72.35 percent. Turnout at 6.30 pm in the last general election four years ago was 68.13 percent.
By 6.30 pm on Sunday, 67.06 percent of Hungary’s voters, 5,159,496 people, had cast their ballots in the referendum concerning Hungary’s child-protection law, the National Election Office (NVI) said. Turnout at 6.30 pm was highest (71.62pc) in Vas County, in western Hungary, and lowest (61.35pc) in Borsod-Abauj-Zemplen, in the north. Turnout in Budapest was 71.75 percent.
Strong sentences from leading politicians
PM Viktor Orbán:
“War and peace are at stake in the election“
Joint opposition PM candidate Péter Márki-Zay:
“Each vote counts because a single vote can decide a single election district and a single election district can, therefore, decide the outcome of today’s ballot“
Deputy PM Zsolt Semjén
“Hungarian weapons must not be sent from Hungary and Hungarian soldiers must not fight in this war.“
Budapest mayor Gergely Karácsony:
the vote would decide
“whether Hungary is on the right or wrong side of history“.
PM chief of staff Gergely Gulyás
“in Europe, in Germany for example, they want to allow boys or girls as young as 14 to make a decision on gender reassignment….We must firmly reject that and this is the moment to say so.“
Klára Dobrev, former PM Ferenc Gyurcsány’s wife
“we will win and he [Péter Márki-Zay] will be prime minister“
What is happening today?
Today is the general elections in Hungary. Six parties of the opposition from former radical Jobbik to left-liberal Democratic Coalition united to defeat PM Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz and the Christian Democrats. Interestingly, the leftist-liberal coalition is led by a conservative politician, Péter Márki-Zay, who won the opposition primary last autumn and is proud of his Christianity.
Of course, there are further competitors. Our Homeland (Mi Hazánk) targets radical, patriotic and vaccine-sceptic voters. Meanwhile, the Magyar Kétfarkú Kutya Párt (Two-Tailed Dog Party), a satirical government-critical party, wants to stand with those, who are fed up with the current political structure. Moreover, there is porn billionaire’s György Gattyán’s Megoldás Mozgalom (Solution Movement), and György Gődény’s virus sceptic Normális Élet Pártja (Normal Life Party).
Furthermore, today is the so-called child protection referendum in Hungary with the following four questions:
Do you support holding educational events on sexual orientation for minors, in public education institutions without parental consent?
Do you support the promotion of gender-reassignment treatments for minors?
Do you support the unrestricted exposure of minors to sexually explicit media content, that may influence their development?
Do you support showing minors media content on gender-changing procedures?
Voters in Sunday’s election will not only pass judgement on the Orbán government’s past twelve years but decide whether Hungary belongs to the West or East, opposition LMP co-leader Erzsébet Schmuck said on Friday.
Schmuck, who is a candidate of the united opposition in Pest County’s 9th election district, told an online press briefing that the Orbán government had succeeded in “dividing Hungarian society, stealing European Union funds, institutionalising corruption, increasing poverty, and bleeding education and health care dry.”
The LMP politician accused the government of “inciting hatred and intimidating people”, which she said was “a grave sin”. Many Hungarians, she added, were afraid to publicly state who they would vote for. One of her colleagues, she insisted, had even been threatened with physical violence.
The six opposition parties have joined forces to bring about change, replace fear and hatred with peace, and bring back solidarity to Hungary, Schmuck declared.
Parties of the united opposition accused Viktor Orbán of “having driven Hungary into a crisis”, in reaction to remarks made by the prime minister in an interview earlier on Friday.
László Varjú, deputy leader of the Democratic Coalition (DK), told a joint online press conference that “Viktor Orbán has admitted that there is, or will soon be, a crisis and if he gets a mandate to continue to govern, he will prepare to take austerity measures”.
Tímea Szabó, co-leader of Párbeszéd, said “the prime minister’s remarks were an open admission that he has driven Hungary into a crisis”. “The prime minister and his Fidesz party have done nothing else over the past twelve years but kept stealing,” she said. Szabó noted
months and years long waiting lists in health care and food price increases by 100-200 forints week after week,
calling Viktor Orban “the one and only danger to Hungary” today.
Máté Kanász-Nagy, co-leader of LMP, said Orban admitted after twelve years of governing that Hungary had faced an economic and social crisis, for which he said the prime minister was to blame.
“Close to 20 percent of Hungary’s population live in poverty while more than 600,000 pensioners receive less than 100,000 forints (EUR 272) per month,”
he said. Once elected, the opposition will double the family allowance and increase pensions gradually to offset inflation, he said.
Dániel Z Kárpát, deputy leader of Jobbik, said Viktor Orbán “has been entirely isolated abroad while he created chaos in government at home”. “The only way out of the economic crisis is an opposition victory,” he said.
In response, Fidesz said if the left wing won the election on April 3 and took power, they would “involve Hungary in the war” in Ukraine and “burden Hungarians with a brutal existential crisis”.
“The left wing has made a pact with the Ukrainians,” the ruling party said in a statement. It said the pact envisaged that Hungary would get involved in the war and impose sanctions on energy deliveries. “As a consequence, Hungary would face an economic, energy and existential crisis,” it said, adding that “Fidesz is the only party that can ensure peace, security and economic stability”.
The united opposition has pledged to base its policies concerning Hungarians communities beyond the borders on a consensus of all political parties and civil organisations within and outside Hungary.
LMP parliamentary group leader László Lóránt Keresztes noted that his party had backed the Szekler National Council’s initiative for national minorities.
Speaking at an online press conference held jointly by LMP and Jobbik members on Wednesday, Lóránt Keresztes said the opposition aimed to help all Hungarians preserve their identities, Keresztes said. Equal opportunities in culture and education are important in achieving that goal, he said.
The opposition would also regard organisations beyond the borders as partners and involve them in applications for tenders,
he said.
Attila Fazakas, Jobbik’s member in the Hungarian Standing Conference (MÁÉRT), called for a fair funding policy and maintaining previous achievements such as dual citizenship and voting rights for Hungarians beyond the borders in Hungarian elections.
Those rights should be extended to Hungarians living in western Europe, too,
He said demographic problems should be addressed in the entire Carpathian Basin, “but the hate policy rampant in Hungary should not be exported”.
While large Hungarian communities are “overfunded”, diasporas are dwindling, he said, and called for the Hungarian Standing Conference to be given a decision-making role.
Ruling Fidesz said in response that the Leftist government before Fidesz came to power in 2010 had
“stabbed Hungarians across the borders in the back with a hate campaign and they expelled them from the nation”.
An opposition government would put Hungarians in and outside Hungary in harm’s way by “entering the war [in Ukraine]” if they came to power, the statement said.
Representatives of the united opposition said on Tuesday that the upgrade of the nuclear plant in Paks has become “untenable” because it would expose Hungary to Russian influence.
LMP’s Péter Ungár told an online press conference that the upgrade was a security risk because the construction was in the hands of “Russians who have also hacked the servers of the foreign ministry”. Lack of transparency also raises the threat of corruption, and the project could also lead to Hungary’s diplomatic isolation, he said. Continuing the investment would also mean that Hungary “does not tread the green path”, he said.
Rebeka Szabó (Párbeszéd), a candidate of the united opposition for the April 3 general election, called the upgrade a “total failure”.
The government agreed on the upgrade with Russia without allowing competition, and the construction has barely started, she said.
Contrary to the original plans, Russia would not handle used fuel rods, she said. Meanwhile, she insisted that Prime Minister Viktor Orbán “intentionally dialled down” projects on sustainable energy, and tied “the country’s entire energy policy to this risky project”.
Bernadett Szél, another opposition for the election, said
the upgrade was a “corruption scheme that had nothing to do with nuclear energy.”
She insisted that János Süli, the minister without portfolio responsible for the upgrade, did not have the impact studies and risk assessments on the project, “so no one knows why the government started it in the first place.”
Szél said that
“after the change of government,” the energy efficiency of residential buildings would have a priority.
The opposition plans to renovate 100,000 dwellings a year, she said. This would also help Hungary “sever the umbilical chord to gas”, another factor in the country’s dependence of Russia, she said.
As we wrote a few weeks ago, work on the upgrade of Hungary’s Paks nuclear power plant is “proceeding according to plan”, the local unit of Russia’s Rosatom, the general contractor for the project, told regional news agency Paks-Press. Details HERE.
