The opposition alliance's PM candidate wanted to establish a new party to bring together those right-wing conservatives who became disenchanted with ruling Fidesz.Continue reading
It has been decided who will be the “talking heads” in the campaign for Péter Márki-Zay, or more precisely in the opposition’s cooperation, government-critical conservative Magyar Hang reports. “Talking heads” refers to those who are in charge of the communication of a particular field, i.e. they represent the position of the opposition and their prime ministerial candidate on a given topic.
“Talking heads” does not mean the future ministers, but the people who will be in charge of a particular area in the next few months, certainly until the general elections.
According to Magyar Hang, on the issue of municipal governance and local politics, the chosen candidate is Tamás Wittinghoff, a former politician of liberal SZDSZ who has been the mayor of Budaörs for 30 years, has been running as a candidate for the Budaörs Development Association since 2010, and has always won the local elections.
The communication in the field of health will be mainly handled by Zoltán Komáromi, the health politician of the Democratic Coalition and a general practitioner.
Imre Komjáthi will be responsible for representing workers’ rights and interests. The deputy chairman of the Socialist Party started as a locksmith at BorsodChem Zrt. in 1995 and became nationally known when he was one of the main organizers of the second “hunger march” in 2013. Since then, Komjáthi has been a politician who speaks primarily on behalf of workers.
Róbert Lengyel is entrusted with the communication of the law enforcement issue. He was previously a professional police officer for 24 years and has been the independent mayor of Siófok since 2014. Together with Péter Márki-Zay, they announced a migration billboard campaign in Röszke a few weeks ago. The blue-based billboards – similar to those put up by the government – proclaimed that George Soros had settled zero migrants, while Fidesz had settled 55,000.
The communicator on economic issues will be Júlia Király. She was an economic policy expert for (then liberal) Fidesz in the early 1990s and later held senior positions in several commercial banks, and between 2007 and 2013 she was Vice President of the Hungarian National Bank and a member of the Monetary Council. She has previously stood up for Péter Márki-Zay, prompting the government to send a “threatening message” to the management of his former employer, Brussels-based KBC, which owns K&H Bank. She then resigned from her position on the bank’s board.
Legal sociologist Zoltán Fleck, who has already spoken on the subject several times, will be the primary communicator on constitutional issues. A few weeks ago, he gave a major interview to 444, which revealed that the months-long debate had been settled and that the opposition coalition was preparing a radical step: if they win in the spring, they will tackle the constitution with a half majority.
LMP’s Máté Kanász-Nagy will be responsible for social affairs. The male co-chair of his party since 2020, he describes himself as a social politician.
Katalin Lukácsi, perhaps one of the best-known members of the Everyone’s Hungary Movement led by Péter Márki-Zay, will be in charge of church affairs. She is known to have previously been a member of the KDNP (Christian Democrats), but left the party and has since taken on a public role. She is a religious educator by training and often speaks out on such issues.
Sports will be entrusted to former Olympic champion Hungarian water polo player, Ádám Steinmetz, who is currently an MP of Jobbik.
Featured image via Péter Márki-Zay’s Facebook page
