The Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP) and Jobbik both had their respective rendez-vous with destiny on Sunday night. At the same time, former Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány’s Democratic Coalition (DK) and the fledgling Momentum party, both underestimated in opinion polls, caused much surprise by their strong showing in European Parliament elections in Hungary. The results were as follows, with turn-out at […]
We last spoke in the summer of 2017. (See HFP’s piece here and here.) At that time, you had been sentenced to two and a half years in prison and your partner, Miklós Tátrai, received three years from the Curia for the Sukoró land swap deal of 2008. When I interviewed you with Christopher Adam at this time, you came […]
Hungary has gone through two national election campaigns (2010 and 2014), in which Prime Minister Viktor Orbán refused to engage his opponents in televised debates. Ever since performing poorly against then Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány in the 2006 election debate (an election that Mr. Orbán lost to the Hungarian Socialist Party – Alliance of Free Democrats coalition), Mr. Orbán has avoided […]
Former Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány’s Democratic Coalition party is contesting national elections on 8th April with a handful of populist themes that will likely mobilize his base and perhaps attract some traditional opposition voters disillusioned with the socialists. Based on a speech he gave on Saturday at a Budapest hotel, and on the narrative of his campaign to date, three […]
On Monday we learned that Gábor Fodor’s Hungarian Liberal Party will support the Hungarian Socialist Party and Párbeszéd in elections to be held 8 April 2018. While it is highly unlikely that the tiny Liberal Party’s logo would appear on the ballot alongside those of MSZP and Párbeszéd (doing so would require the joint list to pass a 15% threshold […]
Former Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány was a guest on ATV’s Egyenes Beszéd (Straight Talk) evening news program. The host, Egon Rónai, asked the leader of the Democratic Coalition: did he feel vindicated that after months of László Botka calling on him to step back from the front-line of politics, it was he who was was ultimately left standing? Would Mr. […]
László Botka, the Hungarian Socialist Party’s nominee for prime minister in the 2018 elections, and István Ujhelyi, MSZP’s vice president, both resigned on Monday, throwing the largest party of the democratic opposition into turmoil a mere seven months before the national vote. Mr. Botka claimed that “secret agents” of Fidesz within both MSZP and in the broader left-centre opposition made […]
Some of the smaller “new left”-style parties are planning a joint, mass protest for August 20th, Hungary’s national holiday, in support of investigative journalists who will become official targets of the Orbán government’s vitriol in the coming months. The small Együtt party is spearheading the demonstration along Budapest’s Szabad Sajtó (Free Press) boulevard, with support from Zugló Mayor Gergely Karácsony […]
Zsolt Császy, a lawyer, university professor and a former spokesperson and parliamentary expert for Fidesz during the early nineties, is heading to prison in the coming weeks, after being the victim of what is widely seen to have been a show trial targeting former Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány and people who served in prominent positions during his government. Mr. Császy […]
In the past 10 days, Hungary’s former Socialist Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány made two very significant and interconnected accusations against Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and the ruling Fidesz party. First, he claimed to have seen documents years ago that suggest Mr. Orbán’s cozy relationship with Moscow boils down to blackmail. More specifically, Mr. Gyurcsány charges that Prime Minister Orbán is […]
