None of the opposition candidates could defeat the incumbent mayor of Budapest, István Tarlós of ruling Fidesz, if the municipal elections were held this weekend, a poll released by Nézőpont Institute on Saturday showed.
Should Olga Kálmán, a television personality backed by the Democratic Coalition, come out as a winner of the opposition’s ongoing preselection process to field a candidate against Tarlós in the autumn municipal elections, the incumbent mayor would defeat her 48:38.
Tarlós, serving as mayor since 2010, would defeat Momentum Movement’s Gábor Kerpel-Fronius 54:22 and independent Róbert Puzsér 55:18, the poll showed.
According to the poll, 62 percent of Budapest respondents see Tarlós fit to serve as mayor, as against 35 percent saying the same about Karácsony and 31 percent holding this view about Kálmán.
Nézőpont conducted the poll by asking 1,000 voting age adults by phone between June 14 and 19.
The second round of voting in the preselection of the left-wing opposition candidate for mayor of Budapest got under way on Thursday.
Registered voters can choose from among Gergely Karácsony of the Socialist-Párbeszéd alliance, Momentum’s Gábor Kerpel-Fronius, and independent Olga Kálmán, backed by the leftist Democratic Coalition (DK), with the winning candidate challenging incumbent Mayor István Tarlós in the autumn municipal election. Voting ends on July 26.
The mayor of Budapest’s 14th district said he expects the second-round turnout to exceed the turnout of over 34,000 voters in the first round held at the beginning of the year.
In a pitch to voters, Karácsony said “every poll” showed that he was the one with the best chance of beating Tarlós, pointing out his experience as district mayor. He said it had been made clear both in last year’s general election and in this year’s EP election that most Budapest residents wanted change.
In response to a question, Karácsony said that though the opposition candidates agreed on many of the issues, his platform was “greener” and contained “more solidarity” than those of his rivals.
Responding to another question, he vowed to support the winning candidate “1,000 percent” if he lost the preselection.
Half of decided voters would back the incumbent mayor of Budapest, István Tarlós of ruling Fidesz, if the municipal elections were held this weekend, a fresh poll released by Századvég Institute on Wednesday showed.
Tarlós’s voter base is broader than that of the political right in the capital.
Among the opposition contenders, most popular is Gergely Karácsony, the joint Socialist-Párbeszéd candidate, with support of 21 percent. Karácsony is followed by Olga Kálmán, a senior journalist and television personality backed by the Democratic Coalition, with 15 percent, the poll said.
The next two candidates, independent Róbert Puzsér, and Momentum Movement’s Gábor Kerpel-Fronius, would garner support of 8 percent and 6 percent, respectively.
Asked about Tarlós’s performance, 57 percent of respondents were satisfied, while 41 percent stated the opposite with 2 percent stating no opinion at all.
Századvég conducted the poll by asking 1,000 voting age adults by phone between June 15 and 18.
As we wrote on yesterday, Budapest residents can cast their votes in the opposition’s preselection for a joint candidate for the post of Budapest mayor in the upcoming municipal election. Details HERE.
The leftist Democratic Coalition (DK) has called on Hungary’s opposition parties and civil organisations to find joint mayoral candidates for the upcoming municipal elections in as many localities as possible by midsummer.
“The EP elections of late May have put an end to political standstill, producing results that suggest that ruling Fidesz can be defeated not only in Budapest but in other cities, too,”
parliamentary spokesman Zsolt Gréczy told a press conference.
The Democratic Coalition is pleased to see that in several localities the opposition parties have agreed on fielding joint candidates for both mayors and local councillors, he said.
The election of opposition mayors in Budapest, its districts and the major cities would not automatically bring about the fall of Viktor Orbán’s government but it would change Hungary’s political map and public mood, Gréczy said.
The spokesman firmly denied rumours about his party’s potential merger with the Socialists under DK’s Klára Dobrev and the Socialist Bertalan Tóth as co-leaders.
A recent plenary debate between opposition candidates for the post of Budapest mayor has “mobilised residents” and “will hopefully contribute to high turnout” in the second round of the preselection, Gergely Karácsony, candidate of the Socialist-Párbeszéd party alliance, told a press conference on Saturday.
Such public debates, he said, could greatly contribute to “restoring the weathered spirit of democracy to Hungary”. In a democracy “candidates trust one another’s good intentions, they trust that the others seek to develop the city rather than destroy it and they strive to settle issues in open debates”, he said.
Karácsony insisted that losing contenders in the pre-election must support the winner, no matter who it is.
He added that he would do so, and would expect the others to support him afterwards should he win.
Opposition LMP’s Budapest organisation on Saturday agreed to support the winner of the opposition’s pre-election in the upcoming mayoral election, under an agreement with the opposition Momentum, Socialist and Párbeszéd parties.
In return for LMP’s gesture, the three other parties will support one LMP candidate in each of the city’s districts, the executive added.
Further cooperation talks will be coordinated by a three-strong committee from LMP’s side, Kanász-Nagy said.
Journalist and television personality Olga Kálmán has announced her bid to become Budapest mayor in the upcoming local election as an independent candidate with support from leftist Democratic Coalition (DK).
Kálmán and DK MEP-elect Klára Dobrev announced Kálmán’s candidacy at a press conference on Thursday. Dobrev said they had already notified Socialist-Párbeszéd candidate Gergely Karácsony, to whom DK had earlier pledged support.
Answering a question, Dobrev said that DK’s agreement with Karácsony had ensured DK’s support for the first round of the pre-election of opposition candidates. All parties would want “a really exciting political debate,” she said, adding that the decision would not affect DK’s agreements with other opposition parties at district level.
Dobrev said that the candidate had shown herself to be an “ardent and uncompromising opponent of (PM) Viktor Orbán’s regime” as well as of the incumbent mayor, István Tarlós, who “unconditionally serves the prime minister in every way”. Kálmán will “unite rather than divide” Budapest residents that want change. Kálmán is “not a political party member nor has she ever been,” Dobrev added.
Should she be elected mayor, Kálmán would “make the atmosphere in Budapest freer” and fight against “shady deals”, Dobrev said.
Kálmán said that the public wants new players in Hungarian political life, adding that she and Dobrev would both be glad to see more women in the arena. She said she seeks a broad public support and, if she were to win the pre-election, would rely on support from the voters of the Socialist, Momentum, and ruling Fidesz parties.
“Restoring Budapest to its residents is a priority,” Kálmán said.
In response, Karácsony said a larger number of opposition candidates running in the pre-election rounds would give greater legitimacy to whomever is chosen to challenge Tarlás in the autumn ballot.
In a video message posted on Facebook, Karácsony said he was glad to receive the news of Kálmán’s candidacy. He added, however, that until now he had been backed by DK.
“C’est la vie, this is how politics is, apparently,” he said.
Karácsony said he not only strove to win the pre-election and the autumn ballot but to tackle the most acute problems burdening Budapest residents, such as air pollution, “skyrocketing” property prices and poverty affecting an increasing number of people. He pledged to run on a green, left-wing programme.
The opposition Momentum Movement on Monday nominated businessman Gábor Kerpel-Fronius, the leader of the party’s chapter in Budapest’s 13th district, as its candidate for Budapest mayor in the autumn local elections.
At a press conference boradcast on its Facebook page, Momentum leader András Fekete-Győr said that the results of the European parliamentary election, where Momentum has secured two EP mandates with nine percent of the votes, has shown that Hungarian politics needs “new faces”.
Momentum is the strongest opposition party in 10 of the 23 districts in Budapest, he said.
The decision to nominate Krempel-Fronius was made before the EP election, Fekete-Győr said.
Should Socialist-Párbeszéd candidate Gergely Karácsony win the second round of the opposition pre-election ballot at the end of June, Momentum is ready to back him, he added.
Kerpel-Fronius said
“we have to take Budapest back from the Fidesz mafia.”
While incumbent Mayor Istvan Tarlós “has no vision of what Budapest should look like in ten years”, Momentum has a programme until 2030, he said.
Budapest residents should not have to pay rents exceeding thirty percent of their incomes, and they should have modern, environment friendly alternatives to driving cars in the city, he said. They want a Budapest “where people do not drown in smog” and where important decisions are not made over their heads, he added.
The city mayor should also have his voice heard in Budapest-related “issues of values” such as that of the Central European University, the fate of the 1956 Institute or the reconstruction of the city park, he said.
Róbert Puzsér, an independent Budapest mayoral candidate backed by opposition Jobbik and LMP, has suspended his campaign for the autumn ballot until the upcoming European parliamentary elections, his campaign chief said on Monday.
The focus for politicians and parties until May 26 should be on issues and challenges faced by “the European continent and the entire civilisation” over the next two weeks, Péter Zaránd told MTI.
Announcing his decision on Facebook, Puzsér said he would remove leaflets circulated in the streets that “question the skills” of mayoral candidates of the opposition Socialist-Párbeszéd party alliance, as well as stop “attacking” politicians in Budapest.
Puzsér said
he had sought to persuade the joint Socialist-Párbeszéd candidate to follow suit, but Gergely Karácsony refused to do so.
He said he still believed that his “unilateral gesture could help improve domestic political culture so that it would look beyond party interests and a quest for political positions”.
The dispute between Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Brussels is a fake fight, Róbert Puzsér, the opposition Jobbik and LMP parties’ Budapest mayoral candidate, has said.
Speaking at a May 1 celebration in Budapest, he said Orbán needed the European Union‘s money and the EU needed a skilled but cheap Hungarian workforce. The EU, he added, was not truly interested in the rule of law in the Carpathian Basin.
“They’re not going to liberate us.”
Both sides need the other, Puzsér said, in order to define themselves against the other.
He called Orbán Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “forward officer”, adding that the legacy of Hungary’s founder, King St. Stephen, was that the country belonged to the West.
“Two of our revolutions were crushed by the Russians and, given a third, that would also be crushed,” he said. Hungary, he said, had a choice between turning to the East for oil and gas, or to the West for freedom.
Asked whether the opposition would cooperate in metropolitan districts in the municipal elections, he said the left-wing parties had declined to enter into a fair agreement with “the centre”. Fairness, he added, would mean dividing the seats by averaging the results of last year’s parliamentary elections and May’s EP ballot.
When it was put to him that opinion polls had found him to be the least popular politician since the 1989-1990 change in political system, he said the results of surveys could not be taken at face value.
Joint candidate of the opposition Socialists and Parbeszed parties for Budapest mayor Gergely Karácsony promised a free, green and liveable city in his election programme launched on Saturday.
Instead of being a strong-handed leader, the candidate said he wanted to lead a strong city. He added that he insisted on the pre-selection of opposition candidates because he believed in the power of the community and wanted to develop his programme’s priorities in cooperation with Budapest residents.
Featured image: MTI
Karácsony cited the example of Vienna which he said had been run by progressive mayors for a hundred years.
He called for a strong community-based home rental scheme and said that people who buy an annual card should not pay more than one hundred forints (30 euro cents) a day for using public transport.
He promised establishing a “green corridor” in Budapest from Margaret Island through Hajógyári Island to Római embankment in the north and pledged to prevent “unnecessary developments” such as a “sneaking Olympics project”.
Karácsony called for a clean, well-ordered and safe city and promised to pay “metropolitan bonuses” to police.
Commenting on the financial resources needed for developments, he said at least a thousand billion forints could be gained from stopping projects that are not supported by the majority of Budapest residents, only by the ruling Fidesz party.
Hungarian ATV’s “Start” show interviewed Jobbik’s executive vice president and faction leader Márton Gyöngyösi, who is also leading the party’s list for the EP elections. Among other matters, Gyöngyösi was asked questions about his party’s endorsement of Budapest mayoral candidate Róbert Puzsér and the European parliamentary elections as well.
“Róbert Puzsér laid down a programme which allows for the formation of an independent political pole,” this is how Gyöngyösi explained why Jobbik joined Politics Can Be Different (LMP) in backing the publicist’s campaign.
The vice president noted that his party had long been voicing its opinion that, in the interest of Hungary’s future, they could envision a closer cooperation with eco-party LMP and Momentum, which Jobbik also considers as a modern 21st-century party.
According to Gyöngyösi, Puzsér’s Walking Budapest programme deserves support, it could mobilize people and offer an alternative to both the system of the past 30 years and PM Orbán’s System of National Cooperation. For example,
the programme features anti-corruption measures which enjoy the backing of all 21st-century parties. Jobbik’s vice president said they hoped that Róbert Puzsér would be able to defeat Gergely Karácsony in the primary.
Now that Puzsér is endorsed by two opposition parties, the situation has changed fundamentally and increased his chances to win, he added.
Talking about the municipal elections, the show host mentioned that opposition parties might join their forces to support Jobbik’s Ádám Mirkóczki in the city of Eger. In response, Gyöngyösi asserted that they were looking for the winning formula in each village and town to make sure there is one opposition candidate facing Fidesz in each electorate. He explained that
Jobbik had many credible candidates all over Hungary, including Mirkóczki, who managed to gain the support of all opposition parties.
Regarding the stakes of the municipal elections, he said: “We must offer an alternative to PM Orbán’s System of National Cooperation and we must dismantle it because it destroys democracy.” He added that all opposition parties agreed on this principle.
Talking about the EP election and his top position on Jobbik’s list, Gyöngyösi noted that he had been dealing with foreign policy issues for 10 years, he was familiar with the work conducted in Brussels, especially since he had been actively involved in compiling Jobbik’s EP election programme.
He stated that, as the leader of the party’s EP list, he was preparing for working in the European Parliament but due to Hungary’s volatile domestic political situation, the party’s final decision whether Gyöngyösi would actually go to Brussels to represent Hungarian voters would be made on 26 May.
The parties of the 21st century signed a trilateral agreement with Róbert Puzsér. The agreement means that Jobbik joined Politics Can Be Different (LMP) in supporting the mayoral candidate who promises a more liveable Budapest. Momentum Party has not joined yet. Puzsér said Momentum and all other organizations that agree with his programme had until June to join the newly-formed political center.
The trilateral agreement regulates all aspects of the cooperation. Both LMP and Jobbik are going to help Puzsér’s campaign for mayor of Budapest and they will also coordinate their efforts in all the 23 districts of the Hungarian capital. Their goal is to make Budapest more liveable and ensure the transparency of public spending.
“We are rising above partisanship because there is a mountain towering between partisan interests and we are climbing this mountain so that we could meet. Now we need to build a bridge between the different interests and the gap is bridgeable,”
Puzsér described the newly-forming political centre. Signed by the leaders of the modern 21st-century parties and the independent mayoral candidate, the cooperation agreement, subject to minor modifications, welcomes interested organizations, NGOs or political parties until late June, as long as they agree with the programme and are dissatisfied with Budapest’s current leadership. Puzsér said Momentum was not willing to join at the moment.
He added that he was open to all values except extremism, which he described as “out of the question”. He noted that if he experienced anything like that in either party, be it LMP or Jobbik, the affected party would be expelled from the alliance.
He made a few remarks about the left-wing parties, too. Puzsér said his group never discussed any future positions during the negotiations, which he was very happy about. In his view, this is a clear indication that LMP and Jobbik truly want to make a change while the left-wing parties have not communicated anything about their programme but they are already busy discussing future positions.
LMP was represented by co-presidents Márta Demeter and László Lóránt Keresztes as well as Budapest president László Moldován.
The delegates of the eco-party explained they backed Puzsér because he asked them to support a programme that LMP could identify with. The party’s experts will be actively involved in developing the details of the Walking Budapest programme.
On behalf of Jobbik, the trilateral agreement was signed by President Tamás Sneider, Executive Vice President Márton Gyöngyösi and Budapest President János Bencsik.
Talking about the goals of the new pole, Sneider said they wanted to break Fidesz’ dominance in the municipal elections so that they could oust as many corrupt local politicians as possible.
Gergely Karácsony, the Budapest mayoral candidate representing four opposition parties, and Róbert Puzsér, the green opposition LMP party’s candidate, have vowed to step aside in favour of the other in a primary to be held in the summer ahead of the autumn local elections.
Karácsony, the co-leader of the Párbeszéd party, was voted by Democratic Coalition (DK), Párbeszéd, Socialist and Solidarity Movement supporters as their candidate in a primary held in February.
At a discussion organised by news site Válasz Online, Puzsér pledged to drop out of the race if he lost the preselection vote, but said that he would only support Karácsony if he implemented his “Walking Budapest” programme. Karácsony agreed to support Puzsér should the LMP candidate win, and said that their programmes “were not that different”.
Párbeszéd’s Gergely Karácsony won the preselection vote to determine the left-wing opposition’s candidate for mayor of Budapest, defeating the Socialist Party’s Csaba Horváth.
A total of 34,133 valid votes were cast over the course of the week-long ballot, Péter Szigeti, the psephologist asked to oversee the vote and former head of the National Election Committee, told a press conference on Sunday.
Karácsony received 27,598 votes to Horváth’s 6,535, Szigeti said.
“This day has no loser, except Fidesz,” he said. The mayor of Budapest’s 14th district said the capital had scored a “historic” victory against Fidesz’s “divisive politics”.
He said today was also the day when the opposition united with the people against the politics of Fidesz.
Karácsony said that starting on Monday, the opposition would use the power of the people against incumbent Budapest Mayor István Tarlós in an effort to change the city.
He said the message of the preselection vote was that Budapest’s residents were thinking outside the confines of political parties, and more in terms of common goals. Karácsony said he and all of his allies should keep in mind that they are not looking for the opposition’s mayoral candidate or offering an opposition election programme, but rather looking for the candidate of the people of Budapest and shaping their election programme to serve the people’s interests.
He said the opposition would keep going until Fidesz only had one challenger left.
Congratulating Karácsony, Horváth said in his concession speech that the people of Budapest had chosen their flag bearer. He vowed to support Karácsony, saying that they were both aiming to “liberate” Budapest.
DK’s acting deputy leader Csaba Molnár said Budapesters knew that the incumbent mayor was “a viceroy appointed by the prime minister”. He said the opposition had to nominate a single mayoral candidate to have a shot at unseating Tarlos in the autumn.
Párbeszéd MP Olivio Kocsis-Cake said: “The numbers show that the preselection worked.” He said that whereas in Fidesz, positions were decided by a single person, “the democratic side” had conducted a democratic preselection vote.
Gergely Orsi, a member of the preselection committee, said the voting had been clean and fair.
The ruling Fidesz-Christian Democrat alliance called the preselection “a huge failure”.
Lénárd Borbely, the mayor of Budapest’s 21st district for Fidesz, said the past elections had already proven that the opposition did not have a “credible face” it could nominate for Budapest mayor. “Now, they’ve finished the usual casting,” he told MTI. He said the preselection had failed to draw interest, arguing that some 2 percent of Budapest’s residents had taken part in it. Borbély said this meant that the left had trouble mobilising even its own voters.
Opposition LMP is launching its European Parliament election campaign at its party congress on February 23 and 24, party board secretary Máté Kanász-Nagy told MTI on Tuesday.
The LMP party celebrates its tenth anniversary this year, he noted.
At the congress, the party will approve its EP election programme and finalise its list of candidates, Kanász-Nagy said.
The participants will also discuss possible strategies at the EP election 2019, he said.
Options include running independently, fielding a list of its own but seeking opposition allies for the campaign, participating in a joint all-opposition list, or entering into an alliance with conservative Jobbik, Kanász-Nagy said.
The congress will also discuss the party’s strategy for the upcoming Hungarian local election and accept a “Green Declaration” on the ecological values the party stands for, Kanász-Nagy said.
The preselection of the left-wing opposition candidate for mayor of Budapest started on Monday and will run through February 3.
The two candidates, Csaba Horváth of the Socialists and Gergely Karácsony of Párbeszéd, will compete during this week but on Sunday they will sign “an alliance for the future” with other parties, civilians and Budapest voters, the Socialists’ Budapest president Zsolt Molnár told reporters.
Current Budapest Mayor István Tarlós of the ruling Fidesz party has many supporters but “it is far from impossible to defeat him”, he said.
The municipal elections, especially the election of the Budapest mayor, scheduled for this autumn will be crucial because the opposition will have better chances in the 2022 parliamentary elections if it wins in Budapest this year, he added.
Molnár asked Budapest residents’ to support Horváth but added that after Sunday the Socialists will fully support whichever candidate wins the preselection.
Votes can be submitted for the candidates at 33 locations throughout Budapest until noon on Sunday.
The opposition Socialists’ candidate for Budapest mayor Csaba Horváth announced his programme on Tuesday, promising to address the city’s main problem which he defined as a lack of freedom and financial independence.
He told a press conference that his programme had been in the making for over ten years and it represented an “indictment” against Mayor Istvan Tarlás, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and ruling Fidesz. He said that since 2010, Budapest has been “systematically destroyed” by the nationalisation of schools and hospitals, the use of City Park as a construction site and the felling of tens of thousands of trees.
He promised that if he becomes mayor, 10 percent of all the tax paid in Budapest will remain in Budapest.
All Budapest buses will be electric, new tramlines will be built, the metro will be extended and disabled access will be developed, he added. He also said that 100,000 square metres of new parks would be built annually in the next five years and a park-guarding service would be set up to improve security.
He promised that the Budapest city council would recover the ownership of hospitals and schools will offer competitive knowledge with language skills.
He said poverty must be eliminated and people must be offered help to prevent homelessness.
In response to a question, Horváth said his personal ambitions for the post will last until February 3 when the primary among left-wing candidates ends. He said the election programme of Párbeszéd mayoral candidate Gergely Karácsony greatly overlaps his, so if Karácsony were to win the primary, he would support him.
An anti-government cooperation is formulating in Hungarian politics that includes beyond opposition parties trade unions and civil groups, the Hungarian Liberal Party’s candidate for Budapest mayor in this year’s municipal elections said on Monday.
With their close cooperation the incumbent “illiberal government” can be forced “to withdraw” in several areas, Ádám Sermer told public news channel M1.
He said that the opposition had better chances in the race for the post of Budapest mayor if they were able to unite to back a single candidate.
Sermer said it was important to choose a candidate who can commonly represent liberal and democratic ideals.
The municipal election will be held in the autumn.
