municipal elections 2019

Local elections – Fidesz: ‘Opposition cooperation has collapsed’

kósa fidesz

The opposition’s goal of maintaining a “grand pact” for the October 13 local elections has collapsed, ruling Fidesz’s campaign chief said on Wednesday.

Lajos Kósa, head of the ruling Fidesz-Christian Democrat (KDNP) alliance’s campaign in the local elections, said the opposition’s “original aim was to field a single candidate everywhere” against the ruling parties. This is only taking place in six of the 23 Budapest districts and two of 23 cities with county rights, he said.

Fidesz-KDNP is fielding 828 mayoral candidates and supporting another 387 candidates nationwide, he said. The opposition is running 128 candidates, he said.

Fidesz-KDNP has attained its aim to field a candidate in localities with a total population of 8 million, he said.

Regarding reports of incumbent Budapest mayor Istvan Tarlós “not ruling out” a debate among candidates, Kósa said the decision was up to Tarlós. Kósa said

he personally “sees no point” in a debate as “in this case, all it is incompetence up against competence”.

Local elections – Karácsony: Government sowing fear in Budapest with ‘blackmail’

Daily News Hungary

Opposition mayoral candidate Gergely Karacsony on Wednesday rejected as “blackmail” a government “threat” to voters to scrap the pact between the government and Budapest — which contains generous central government funding — if incumbent mayor István Tarlós were to lose the October 13 local election.

Karácsony, the joint candidate of the Socialist, Párbeszéd, Democratic Coalition and Liberal parties, said that Gergely Gulyás, the head of the prime minister’s office, had recently declared that the agreement had been signed by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán “as a private citizen”, and that should Tarlós lose the election the agreement would be null and void.

Karácsony called on Budapest voters “not to give in to blackmail”.

The government should support Budapest because it is the nation’s capital not because it votes for the ruling Fidesz party, he said.

Karácsony also called on Tarlós to “reject the government’s approach on behalf of himself and the citizens of Budapest”, and come clean about whether he finds it acceptable that Fidesz is helping his campaign by “blackmailing voters”.

POLL: Tarlós 52 percent, Karácsony 42 percent

As we wrote yesterday, some 56 percent of Budapest residents find incumbent mayor István Tarlós fit for the post whereas 32 percent say the same about Gergely Karácsony, the left-liberal opposition candidate, read more HERE.

Local elections – Opposition candidate Karácsony: Building stadiums equals theft

Jobbik: Restore the power of local governments

jobbik mp bana

In his press conference, Jobbik’s vice president Tibor Bana urged the government to improve living standards in rural settlements. He criticized Fidesz for giving up on the citizens living in small villages. Explaining Jobbik’s position on the matter, Mr Bana said his party wanted to improve the quality of life in the more than one thousand villages where the population is below five hundred even though they represent less than three per cent of Hungarian citizens in total. Each life is just as valuable as the other, so these people should be given a chance just like those living in larger settlements, he added.

Press release – The centre-right politician called on the government to implement the promised programme of providing free wi-fi for each village, along with a truly useful public transport system instead of the one or two buses per day. Talking about the needs of these citizens, he also mentioned giving decision-making capacities back to local governments because, he said, they had been deprived recently.

Mr Bana called it a vital issue to stop young people’ emigration from villages.

The way to do so, he suggested, is to provide better conditions for local businesses to apply for tenders so that more jobs could be created in the small settlements.

Immigration

Alfahir asked Jobbik’s vice president about Wall Street Journal’s in-depth article on Hungary’s immigration policy. According to the American newspaper, Hungary opens its gates wide for foreign workers despite the government’s loud anti-immigration rhetoric. Mr Bana said Hungarian wages were far below the Western European average, that’s why Jobbik called for a European Wage Union.

“The government purposefully keeps wages low to put Hungarian workers in a vulnerable position. The cabinet also welcomes Eastern guest workers because they are willing to do these jobs even for the low wages.”

The conservative politician criticized the government for failing to do anything to prevent young Hungarians from moving to Western Europe to work.

“The government is busy building new guest worker hostels in many places, including Szentgotthárd. It would be much more important to solve the housing problems of young Hungarian workers instead,” Mr Bana noted.

Take back our schools?

The politician also asked about Jobbik’s position on giving back schools and other social institutions to the local governments for operation. The vice president said the towns and villages should be given a chance to decide if they want to finance their local institutions.

“Some of the powers of municipalities were taken away when the government decided to operate these institutions centrally. Towns and villages should be allowed to decide if they could finance institutions like that.”

Mr Bana confirmed that Jobbik’s municipal programme largely focused on small settlements and villages because they had a major role in Hungary’s society.

Hungarian police investigate opposition’s handling of voter data – MNO

karácsony pikó

Police are investigating the opposition’s handling of voter data in connection with the local election campaign in the 8th district of Budapest, the daily Magyar Nemzet’s online edition said Tuesday, citing police information.

The authorities in the 8th district are investigating the handling of voter data by the opposition’s campaign branch there as well as allegations of abuse of personal data, according to magyarnemzet.hu.

The paper said evidence in the form of documents and photos showed that the opposition was creating an illegal voter database.

Data protection authority head Attila Péterfalvi told the paper on Monday:

“If press reports are true, not only was there unlawful data management but personal data abuse and election crimes will have taken place too.”

He said the law prohibits the recording of data and using voter recommendation slips for any other purpose than collecting a sufficient number of signatures for a candidate to be eligible to run in the election.

Máté Kocsis, the leader of the ruling Fidesz group and a former mayor of the 8th district, called on the opposition’s candidate András Pikó to withdraw.

Commenting earlier, the campaign chief of the opposition mayoral candidate insisted that Pikó’s campaign had been carried out in line with Hungarian and European data protection regulations. In a statement, Tessza Udvarhelyi denied that the unlawful collection of data had taken place. She said the data for the local election campaign was being handled by the civil society C8 Civilek Józsefvárosért in line with regulations published on the organisation’s Facebook page and also on all online and offline contact forms.

The data of supporters is recorded only if they give consent to this in writing and strictly for specific purposes, such as to subscribe for newsletters or to carry out volunteer work, she said.

Personal data from the recommendation slips is not recorded or stored in any form, she added.

Local elections – POLL: Tarlós 52 percent, Karácsony 42 percent

local election 2019

Some 56 percent of Budapest residents find incumbent mayor István Tarlós fit for the post whereas 32 percent say the same about Gergely Karácsony, the left-liberal opposition candidate, according to a fresh poll released by the Nézőpont research institute on Monday, just five weeks ahead of the local elections.

In the whole electorate, 60 percent expected that Tarlós, the candidate of the ruling Fidesz-Christian Democrat alliance, would win the ballot, as against 18 percent tipping Karácsony a winner, the poll showed. Róbert Puzsér, an independent candidate, was seen winning the post by only one percent.

Among those identifying themselves as left-wing voters, 43 percent said Tarlós would win the October 13 ballot compared with 41 percent expecting Karácsony’s victory, Nézőpont said in a release.

Among pro-government voters, 88 percent expected the re-election of Tarlós for a third term and only 3 percent expected Karácsony to defeat him.

Among decided voters, Tarlós was backed by 52 percent, Karácsony by 42 percent and Puzsér by 6 percent.

Nézőpont conducted the poll from August 29 to September 7 by phone, on a representative sample of 1,000 Budapest residents.

Read more news about MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS 2019

10,000 trees planted in Budapest, says Budapest Mayor Tarlós

Local elections – Budapest mayor: Foreign recognitions contradict opposition criticism

TARLÓS

The foreign plaudits received by Budapest this year contradict opposition criticism that the city had been destroyed by those in power, incumbent mayor István Tarlós told public news channel M1 on Monday morning.

In March, Budapest was awarded the title of ‘European Best Destination’. Most recently, The Economist ranked it as the most livable capital city in eastern Europe, he said.

Tarlos noted that according to the British weekly, Budapest has moved up twenty spots in the ranking since 2010, “taking a towering lead” not only ahead of other eastern European capital cities, but ahead of metropolises such as New York and London.

The ranking criteria speak for themselves, the mayor said, noting that they include factors such as stability, infrastructure, transport, culture and environment.

“For this reason, talking about a destruction of the city is just nonsense, he said.

In response to the opposition signature drive to stop “the stadium construction craze”, Tarlós said he was the one who had stopped the construction of a nine-level tennis stadium on Margaret Island and the reconstruction of a youth stadium.

“As far as the Puskás Stadium is concerned, there is at least one stadium of this size in the capital city of every civilised country,” he said.

The reconstructed stadium is scheduled to reopen later this year.

https://dailynewshungary.com/news_to_go/check-out-the-brand-new-puskas-stadium-photos/

Local elections – Opposition candidate Karácsony: Building stadiums equals theft

The extensive construction of stadiums is equal to theft, Gergely Karácsony told a local election campaign event on Monday. Instead, taxpayers’ money should be spent on health care, he said.

Hundreds of billions of forints have been funnelled into sport construction projects in Budapest recently, the left-wing opposition parties’ mayoral candidate told a press conference on Monday. “And there is no end to it,” he said, referring to construction of an athletics hall in Csepel, as well as similar projects in other districts of the capital.

Speaking in front of the Groupama football stadium, Karácsony added that

the incumbent mayor, István Tarlós, felt more beholden to the interests of the central government that was intent of “building stadiums everywhere” than to those of Budapest residents.

The opposition has started a petition to stop stadium construction and “other reckless investments”, and turn the money towards improving health care.

Meanwhile, asked about documents with photographic evidence obtained by the daily Magyar Nemzet indicating the alleged preparation of election fraud by the opposition in the Józsefvaros district of Budapest,

Karácsony strongly rejected the charge, saying that if anyone were to commit an illegal act, it was unlikely they would post incriminating photographs on Facebook. The question concerned voter data which, it is alleged, was collected illegally. Karácsony said the citizens concerned had given their consent to handing over their data in accordance with the law. He added that the photo in question showed how all recommendation slips had been returned to the authorities.

V4 district mayors meet in Buda Castle

buda-castle

Local council leaders representing the historical districts of the capitals of the Visegrád Group (V4) countries met for talks at the Buda Castle on Saturday, the castle district local council said.

The mayors of the 1st districts of Budapest, Prague, Bratislava and Warsaw discussed matters of sustainability concerning their cities as well as opportunities in central European cooperation, the statement said.

Central Europe is set to become a key economic and political centre of the continent in the coming decades, the statement said, underlining the importance of the capital cities being ready to respond to the challenges of the future.

At the end of the meeting, the mayors signed a declaration in which they pledged to share their experiences with each other in the future, too, and to work together on preserving their cultural values and traditions.

The meeting was attended by Miroslav Vrabel, deputy mayor of Bratislava’s 1st district, Pavel Cizinsky, mayor of Prague’s 1st district, Pawel Martofel, deputy mayor of Warsaw’s 1st district, and Budapest 1st district mayor Gábor Tamás Nagy.

Local elections – Karácsony: Voters have chance for change in their locality

oppsition mayor candidate

By supporting joint candidates of the opposition parties in the October local elections, voters will have a chance to change the future course of their area, Gergely Karácsony, the left-liberal opposition candidate for mayor of Budapest, said on Friday.

The government has damaged health care, education and social care over the past nine years, Karácsony told a press conference.

“We want local governments to have a chance to repair the damage and become islands not only of freedom but of solidarity as well”, he said.

Karácsony said the opposition wanted a fairer and greener policy in the municipalities based on solidarity.

He said that as mayor of the Zugló district of Budapest he was proud of the social model established there, and it figured in every opposition party’s programme in terms of providing a national solution.

Bertalan Tóth, leader of the Socialist Party, said the main aim of the election campaign was to replace the “little kings” of the ruling Fidesz party.

He noted that as well as opposition collaboration in the capital, the opposition has agreed to cooperate on candidates in 21 county seats and in 89 localities with over 10,000 residents.

Tóth said locals had a democratic right to self-government, so the opposition wants to establish a new framework for dialogue in local governments. Employee representatives should be given the chance to help the municipality form its economic development concepts, he added.

Tóth underlined the importance of a free media and freedom of expression, and he said priority areas for left-wing local governments would be social services, education and climate protection.

Answering a question, Karácsony said that once the opposition had handed in the supporting signatures of voters, they would refrain from collecting any further signatures.

Karácsony insisted that the central government only took money away from Budapest rather than ploughing funds into it, and the city had provided a big windfall of capital to the central government over the last nine years, while the city’s debts amounted to 150 billion forints (EUR 455m).

Noting that the EU is expected to allow direct financing of municipalities in the next cycle, he said the measure would provide a great opportunity to finance the capital.

Zugló, Karácsony said, had won direct EU funding worth 2 billion forints to build affordable housing. He added that he was proud the district had made nearly 7 billion forints worth of improvements using its own resources. Almost all kindergartens have been partially or completely renovated, and this is true of district public parks too, he said.

On the controversial subject of parking arrangements in his district for which he has received strong criticism, Karácsony said Zugló had voted for a manifesto that included establishing pay zones, explaining that parking had not been available in the district. After teething problems, a parking system has now been created that is expected to produce revenue of 1 million forints a day. He noted that today, residents can park free of charge in their own neighborhood. At the next council meeting, it will be decided how to move forward on the issue of parking, he said.

Majority in Budapest supporting Mayor Tarlós – Survey

tarlós budapest mayor

Fully 57 percent of respondents in a Századvég survey said they had a positive view of Budapest Mayor István Tarlós, while 41 percent said they preferred Gergely Karácsony, the opposition’s candidate in the upcoming municipal election.

In its report, released on Tuesday, the pollster said that supporters of Tarlós, the candidate of the ruling Fidesz-Christian Democrat alliance, consider the incumbent mayor as an “integrative politician” who is preferred not only be right-wingers.

Karácsony, on the other hand, is seen by his opponents as an “unsuccessful (district) mayor”, who has been “the central character” in the opposition’s pre-selection rounds “burdened with internal fighting”.

Concerning other candidates, the survey found that independent Róbert Puzsér was not popular on either side, with 73 percent of respondents rejecting his candidacy. The report added that Krisztián Berki, another independent, was even less popular, with only 3 percent of all respondents supporting him.

Three quarters of respondents said they did not expect an opposition win in the election, 71 percent voicing the opinion that Tarlós would be re-elected for the next five-year municipal cycle.

Local eletions – Fidesz: Voters to choose between well-tested and unsuitable candidates in October

Jobbik presents local election programme

jobbik president sneider

Opposition Jobbik leader Tamás Sneider presented his party’s programme for the upcoming municipal elections at a press conference on Tuesday, calling his party’s plan a “vision of national solidarity”.

Sneider insisted that neither the government nor the rest of the opposition had a valid programme, adding that “there is no strong Hungary without strong ideals”.

Concerning details of Jobbik’s programme, Sneider said that the “appalling demographic crisis” in small towns should be tackled by building kindergartens, schools, hospitals and churches and providing resources for their operations.

Jobbik would restore management rights of outpatient clinics and community schools to the municipality, and rebuild a “strong county system” to run local public transport, waste collection, as well as homes for the elderly, Sneider said.

He said that by repairing roads and improving transport services Jobbik would increase the mobility of people in small villages, while it would set up police stations in segregated areas to tackle drug problems, Sneider said.

Sneider said it was important that candidates for local mayor should be literate, have basic mathematics skills, and free of a police record of violent or economic crimes.

Jobbik would increase normative financing for local governments, and would leave 8 percent of personal income tax and the whole of the vehicle tax with the municipalities where they are generated, Sneider said, adding that all that would add up to an annual 150-200 billion forints (EUR 452-604m) in extra financing.

Local eletions – Fidesz: Voters to choose between well-tested and unsuitable candidates in October

TARLÓS

Voters at the municipal elections on October 13 will have to choose between mayors who have already proven their skills and unsuitable candidates, Cabinet Chief Antal Rogán said late on Sunday.

The opposition’s joint candidate for Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony, who has been mayor of Budapest’s 14th district for five years, has “filled many posts in many forms, starting his career in the liberal SZDSZ party and the green LMP to become prime ministerial candidate of the Socialists. In the meantime, he neglected his district, almost bringing it to ruin,” Rogan told commercial channel HírTV.

Unlike Karácsony, Budapest Mayor István Tarlós is a well-tested and experienced mayor who does “not shy away from getting into conflict even with the government if the interests of the city so dictate,” he added.

The ruling Fidesz-Christian Democrats have well-tested and experienced mayors in almost all towns and villages who are doing their job well, Rogán said.

The opposition candidates who run against them, however, have a single purpose, namely to pave the way for the left wing to come to power, he added.

The cabinet chief said there is an ongoing ideological battle with the left wing wishing to reshape the world to reflect its own priorities which are “currently packaged in green ideology”. But behind the economic policy of the European greens there is “plain Communism” involving nationalisation, high taxes and paying a basic income to all, he added.

The right-wing alternative, in turn, is taking shape in the fight against migration, he said.

The left wing has “devised a plan to flood … Europe and the Anglo-Saxon countries with migrants” but people “reacted in a natural way to this attempt”, he said, adding that this fight is represented by the Hungarian government building the border fence, head of Italy’s League party Matteo Salvini protecting ports in Italy and US President Donald Trump taking action against migration pressure from the south.

Local election – Karácsony’s campaign curtain-raiser: ‘Let Budapest be green and free!’

Local election – Karácsony’s campaign curtain-raiser: ‘Let Budapest be green and free!’

opposition mayor candidate

Gergely Karácsony, the left-liberal opposition candidate for mayor of Budapest, opened his campaign on Saturday in the capital city with a speech calling for Budapest to be “green and free at last”.

Karácsony called on his followers “to take Budapest back from the hands of the privileged and return the city to its true owners, Budapest’s residents.”

He promised that after the election Budapest residents would win back the capital’s money and self-esteem, and build a green city based on solidarity.

He declared: “Let us say proudly … that I, too, am a Budapester!”

Local elections – Fidesz: Opposition strategy of joint candidates has ‘failed’

fidesz campaign Kósa

The opposition’s strategy to field a single joint candidate against nominees of the ruling parties for the upcoming municipal elections has “failed”, Lajos Kósa, campaign chief of ruling Fidesz, told public broadcaster M1 on Monday.

Kósa argued that the opposition had managed to find joint candidates in only 31 out of Hungary’s 169 municipalities with a population larger than 10,000, noting that the opposition parties had originally vowed to come to consensus in all those places.

The ruling Fidesz-Christian Democrats alliance, however, will field candidates in four-fifths of the larger towns and cities, Kósa added.

AS we wrote yesterday, Hungary’s ruling alliance of Fidesz and the Christian Democrats offers progress, while the opposition offers “unrest” in the upcoming local elections, Kósa said in an interview to daily Magyar Nemzet. Read more HERE.

Local elections – Campaign officially gets under way

Local elections – LMP eyes more ‘green local councils’

fishermens bastion

At stake in October’s municipal elections is whether there will be more “green local councils” after the ballot, opposition LMP said on Sunday.

Hungary needs local councils that will approve within the shortest amount of time schemes promoting the sustainable use of local resources, Erzsébet Schmuck, the party’s deputy group leader, told a press conference in Budapest.

Such schemes will aim to improve the living conditions of local residents, reduce pollution, thwart climate change and help people adapt to its effects, Schmuck said.

Local elections – Budapest Mayor: Opposition campaign aimed at destabilisation

local elections 2019

Budapest Mayor István Tarlós, in a public radio interview on Sunday, branded the opposition’s mayoral election campaign in the capital as a “destabilisation attempt”, arguing that it was “not even about the city itself”.

Asked what kind of a campaign he was expecting in Budapest, Tarlós told Kossuth Radio that the opposition’s campaign “is more like a destabilisation attempt with no variety focused on revenge that was just thrown together and makes no sense whatsoever in terms of the management of the capital”.

The incumbent mayor said the opposition’s messaging was not even focused on Budapest, adding that the proposals they have put forward were “rather unbelievable”.

Tarlós argued that many of their proposals were legally unfeasible and that the opposition candidates who were competent in managing a municipality had already had their chance and failed before 2010.

He criticised the city leadership under former liberal Budapest mayor Gábor Demszky, saying “it was they who left behind the unmanageable operational deficits and it was under their tenure that Budapest’s international perception was damaged.”

He said the opposition politicians who had been in power before 2010 “promised Budapest an actual green rainforest” at a recent press conference.

“How come this never crossed their minds before 2010?” Tarlós asked. “How is it that they only planted a few hundred trees a year while we plant an average of 2,000 a year?”

He said the pre-2010 Budapest leadership had not cared about historical parks like the one on Margaret Island and had barely spent anything on upgrading public parks, which the current leadership spent 5.5 billion forints (EUR 16.6m) on between 2015 and 2019.

He noted that back in 2010, Budapest transport company BKV had operated 24-year-old buses and 30-40-year-old trams. Tarlós said it was under his mayorship that Budapest transport authority BKK completed the interconnected tram network project in Buda. He also noted the renovation of Szell Kálmán Square and the introduction of selective waste management as part of his record.

Since 2010, the local council has stabilised the management of the city, including BKV, he said.

Budapest no longer needs an operating loan and only has a “well-managed development credit line”, he added. Trains on the third metro line were recently renovated and air conditioning will soon be installed on them, the mayor said.

Some 700 billion forints’ worth of development projects have been approved by the local council, Tarlós said. These will include the revamp of the iconic Chain Bridge, the replacement of more BKV vehicles, the renovation of Blaha Lujza Square and Széna Square, the development of the European cycling route network Eurovelo as well as the upgrade of the road leading to Liszt Ferenc International Airport. He said Budapest’s e-ticket system, which will be coupled with the national system, is currently in its introduction phase.

With the various developments on schedule, Tarlós said, “in the future we’ll be able to concentrate on environmental protection and the problem of homelessness”.

Over the last nine years, Budapest’s prestige has risen in the eyes of the international community, Tarlós said, adding that just this year, Budapest was awarded the title of ‘European Best Destination’.

Local elections – Official: Fidesz offers progress against opposition’s ‘unrest’

budapest mayor tarlós

Hungary’s ruling alliance of Fidesz and the Christian Democrats offers progress, while the opposition offers “unrest” in the upcoming local elections, Lajos Kósa, Fidesz’s campaign chief, said in an interview to Saturday’s edition of the daily Magyar Nemzet.

“These are the two choices voters will be faced with in the October 13 municipal election,” Kósa told the paper.

He said voters could expect “many attempts at disinformation” from the opposition parties during the campaign.

Kósa said it was impossible to predict the issues the opposition would campaign on “since their messaging is already all over the place”.

He said the common theme in their messages was their desire to oust Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz party. Kósa argued, however, that this was not the right message in a local election since the vote will not affect the status of the government.

Contrary to the opposition, Kósa said, Fidesz wants to improve Hungary’s municipalities in line with the government scheme launched by the prime minister.

Fidesz is calling on voters “not to put control of their municipality in the hands of the opposition led by Ferenc Gyurcsány and his party, the Democratic Coalition, because that side embraces hate, war and constant hatemongering”, he said.

There are close to 3,200 local councils in Hungary, Kósa said. He added that Fidesz would field or support mayoral candidates in some 1,200 localities.

“The race could end up being close in a number of municipalities, but Fidesz could also secure sweeping victories in many cities and towns,” he added.

In response to a question, Kósa said the ruling alliance was prepared to counter the opposition’s strategy of “supporting candidates who claim to be independent and try to come across as conservative”. All Fidesz would have to do, he said, was go door-to-door and warn voters of this.

Local elections – Campaign officially gets under way

local election 2019

The campaign for Hungary’s October local elections officially got under way on Saturday. Under the election law, the campaign period officially begins 50 days before the election and lasts until the day of the vote.

President János Áder has set October 13 as the date of the local elections. On this day Hungary’s national and ethnic minorities will also elect local representatives.

During the campaign period, political parties do not need to seek permission to put out advertisements.

They are free to put out as many billboards as they want, but need permission to display them on private property.

Starting on Saturday, candidates can start collecting recommendations by voters on recommendation sheets.

Voters can recommend more than one candidate but may only sign the recommendation sheet of a given candidate once.

The number of signatures a given mayoral or councillor candidate must gather in order to run was set by notaries earlier this month based on the number of names in the local voter registry.

Candidates have until 4pm on September 9 to collect the required number of signatures. Parties or other organisations fielding county election lists can collect signatures until September 10.