Hungary’s Christian Democratic People’s Party (KDNP) has been exploring possible local alliances with the openly antisemitic and fascistic Jobbik party ahead of municipal elections. The liberal news magazine hvg.hu wrote this week that KDNP’s local association in the town of Szigetvár was cooperating with Jobbik to support an independent candidate acceptable to both parties, rather than backing the Fidesz candidate. Hvg.hu wrote that KDNP planned to support current deputy mayor János Simon (who also had the support of Jobbik), rather than Fidesz candidate and current mayor János Kolovics.
KDNP
Fidesz-KDNP has been engaged in ugly in-fighting in not only Szigetvár, but also in Budapest’s Erzsébetváros (or 7th district), where the governing alliance has failed to nominate a single candidate for local council, even though municipal elections are little over six weeks away.
Balázs Berkecz, a spokesperson on behalf of the opposition Együtt-PM noted that the “regime of national cooperation was starting to crack.”
KDNP, however, has reacted to the hvg.hu piece, denying that it was cooperating with Jobbik and adding that the party would support the joint Fidesz-KDNP candidate in Szigetvár, though it did not mention Mr. Kolovics’s name anywhere in the party’s statement.
Signs of internal strife within the Fidesz-KDNP camp are increasingly evident. In addition to the internl disputes in Budapest’s 7th district and in Szigetvár, in the working class suburb of Újpest, KDNP will not even appear on the ballot and its political “big brother” Fidesz plans to field its own candidate, without the Christian Democrats. The rift has to do with KDNP councillor Botond Szalma’s poor rapport with local Fidesz politicians. At one point, Mr. Szalma showed up to a council meeting with banners that attacked Council’s Fidesz majority and accused the district’s public property management and holding company of corruption.
KDNP had hoped to be able to field many more candidates than in 2010 for this year’s October municipal elections, but Fidesz was not enthusiastic about this possibility, causing friction (and in some districts and municipalities chaos) within the government camp.
