Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s anti-migrant referendum proved to be the first major defeat suffered by Fidesz in a decade. Fidesz has won every election and referendum since fall 2006, including the 2006 municipal and regional elections, the 2008 referendum calling for the elimination of compulsory medical fees and university tuition, as well as the 2010 and the 2014 parliamentary and […]
There is nervousness in Fidesz, Hungary’s ruling party, as very low turnout in a referendum aimed at rejecting EU-wide “migrant quotas” for Hungary means that the vote may be invalid, and thus an embarrassing defeat for Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Nationally, turnout at 3:00 PM local time was just 31%, according to statistics released by the National Election Office. The […]
Politicians and supporters of the Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP) protested outside the National Election Office in Budapest on Saturday, less than 24 hours before the country’s national referendum on “migrant quotas,” which the left-centre opposition is boycotting. Gyula Molnár, MSZP’s party president, was joined by Gergely Karácsony, the popular district mayor of the small Dialogue for Hungary (Párbeszéd Magyarországért) leftist […]
Hungary’s largest free circulation print daily, Lokál, published an interview with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, three days before the government’s anti-migrant referendum. Lokál is published by the Modern Media Group, a firm co-owned by the prime minister’s personal adviser, Árpád Habony. Earlier this year, without issuing any tender, the Centre for Budapest Transport (BKK) signed an agreement with the Modern […]
Hungary’s National Election Office has processed 32,254 mail-in ballots for the Sunday referendum against EU-wide “migrant quotas” and has deemed that 18% of them (5,708) were spoiled by voters. Hungarians living abroad and holding dual citizenship are eligible to vote by mail-in ballot, but thus far only 28% of the 274,573 registered voters have chosen to participate in the October 2nd […]
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s national referendum against so-called EU-wide “migrant quotas”, scheduled for October 2nd, will likely be invalid, with fewer than 50% of eligible voters casting ballots. The Medián polling firm–perhaps the most reputable pollster in Hungary–was commissioned by the hvg.hu news site to conduct a poll less than a week before the national referendum. Only 42% of respondents […]
The narrative surrounding the explosion that seriously injured two police officers in Central Budapest on Saturday night, exactly one week before the country’s anti-migrant referendum, is beginning to take a rather strange turn. It was odd enough that Hungarian authorities said nothing formally about the attack and no press conference was held until 20 hours after the incident, leaving the […]
There is “no doubt” in the mind of Hungary’s national police chief, Károly Papp, that police officers were the explicit targets of the explosion that occurred Saturday night just after 10:30 PM and which severely injured two officers on patrol near the corner of Teréz Körút and Király utca. Police Chief Papp held a news conference in Budapest early Sunday […]
A bomb went off late Saturday night in central Budapest, seriously injuring two police officers. Preliminary information suggests that an explosive device was detonated in a store located on Teréz Körút and the nails found in the area indicate that it may have been a nail bomb. The two officers were patrolling the area when the bomb went off, shortly […]
If architect József Fischer had his way, much of central Budapest as we know it today would have been gutted, making way for what may have been considered seventy years ago as a groundbreaking modern utopia. The Urbanista blog, associated with the Index news site, dug up some fascinating plans and proposals from 1946, for how Budapest might look in […]
