Hungary’s ruling Fidesz party will launch a petition on September 1st called “Stop Gyurcsány! Stop Karácsony!” According to the party’s parliamentary group leader, the campaign will “remind people that those who want to come to power after the 2022 elections are the same ones who ruined the country between 2002 and 2010.” According to opposition politicians, the ruling party would prefer to abolish the entire opposition altogether. Gergely Karácsony, one of the joint opposition’s candidates for prime minister, also reacted to Fidesz’s planned campaign, posting a long list on his Facebook page about what he would like to put a stop to.
The original article was written by our sister site, Ungarn Heute.
“The leftist governments stripped retirees of one month’s worth of pensions and took away a month’s pay from public servants and teachers. Further, they forced families to take out loans in foreign denominations, scrapped family tax discounts, closed hospitals, and stripped 600 billion forints (EUR 1.7bn) from the healthcare system,” said Máté Kocsis, the Fidesz parliamentary group leader.
According to the governing party, former Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány “has acquired full control of the left.”
So it is completely irrelevant whether Péter Jakab, Gergely Karácsony, or Klára Dobrev will run for prime minister, we are up against Gyurcsány, according to Kocsis.
In the petition, the party evaluates the performance of Mayor Gergely Karácsony, writing: “Budapest is in ruins, there is dirt, garbage, and traffic jams everywhere, and the situation of the homeless has spiraled. Many decisions in the capital are made by Ferenc Gyurcsány and his people, because City Hall is full of his people.”
One of the reasons why the petition has been launched, Kocsis said, was that those who do not want to be “lied to from morning to night…and those who do not want Gyurcsány to lead another cavalry charge against his own countrymen,” can express their opinion in this way.
Gergely Karácsony began his Facebook post on Sunday, responding rather quickly to the announcement by parliamentary group leader Máté Kocsis that Fidesz is launching a petition called “Stop Gyurcsány! Stop Karácsony!” He then added:
“After more than ten years of absolute power, they can only do so much: they are launching an anti-opposition campaign with the outstanding creative slogan “Stop Karácsony!”….Now that’s what I call responsible leadership. True, the stakes are really high. For them too. They are fighting to stay out of jail. And we are fighting for Hungary’s freedom. Karácsony then lists a number of things he would like to stop:
Independent MP Bernadett Szél also reacted to the ruling parties’ new campaign. According to her, “Fidesz launches a petition against the opposition. Do they not want to ban the opposition? Or will that happen later, together with the elections?”
In recent years, especially before the last general elections, stopping someone who allegedly turned against Hungary became one of the main campaign themes of the ruling parties. In 2017, the country saw the “Stop Bruxelles!” campaign against the European Commission and the mandatory quota system; in 2018 the government launched the “Stop Soros” campaign against the US-Hungarian billionaire’s alleged pro-migration plans; and not long after, the government campaigned to stop the United Nations because the institute wanted mandatory quotas for refugees.
Featured photo via Facebook
