Hungary’s opposition parties are making a concerted effort to thwart people from having their say in the latest National Consultation survey mounted by the government to gauge public opinion on how to best handle the coronavirus pandemic, a spokesman for the co-ruling KDNP (Christian Democrats) said on Wednesday.
Lőrinc Nacsa told a press conference that so far more than one million people had filled out the questionnaires on paper and online, while the opposition was doing all it could to prevent people from expressing their opinion.
He accused opposition parties of stealing questionnaires from mailboxes and ripping them up, while at the same time mounting a campaign to discredit the National Consultation.
Controversy isn’t lacking regarding the government’s latest national consultation survey. Lately, several opposition parties started to collect the blank sheets in order to protest against what they call “propaganda material” and “manipulation sheets.” Their collection, however, raised data protection concerns, in addition to pressure from the pro-Fidesz media. All nine national consultations initiated by the […]Continue reading
Nacsa said the opposition had done the same when it came to previous public surveys on migration, economic policy and family policy.
The Christian Democrat politician insisted the opposition failed to represent the Hungarian people or national interests, upholding foreign interests instead. “This is the reason why they are uninterested in the opinion of the Hungarian people concerning immigration, the fight against the epidemic and Hungarian economic sovereignty,” he added.
The National Election Committee (NVB) on Wednesday rejected a referendum initiative on regulating the way nationwide public surveys are conducted. The bid submitted by a private individual had aimed to require “National Consultation” surveys launched in Hungary to include questions from every parliamentary party in proportion to their number of seats. New National Consultation Questions […]Continue reading
The junior ruling party politician, referring to the questions put to Hungarian citizens, asked whether “we should let [financier] George Soros and similar financial speculators put Hungary into debt for an unforeseen period of time.”
“Should we protect Hungarian companies from hostile foreign takeovers or not?”
Another question included in the public survey, he noted, was whether Hungary should choose crisis management based on “left-wing austerity” or continue schemes to protect and create jobs.
Featured photo by Tamás Kovács/MTI