Post Tagged with: "Viktor Szigetvári"

Viktor Szigetvári in his last ATV interview.

Viktor Szigetvári’s exit interview

After more than a decade and a half in Hungarian politics, Viktor Szigetvári is leaving the political arena and potentially even Hungary. He gave a self-reflective, candid and elegant interview on ATV in the days after the election. It was devoid of any political spin. Mr. Szigetvári launched his career not as a front-line politician, but as a political strategist. […]

by · April 16, 2018 · Politics
Peace March cult members declare Viktor Orbán to be the saviour of the nation.  Photo: 444.hu

Orbán’s threat of revenge has fired up the Hungarian opposition

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s decision to use his speech on a Hungarian national holiday to explicitly threaten legal and political revenge against his opponents has opposition politicians, journalists, academics and civil liberties activists wondering if the election on 8 April is, indeed, a “do or die” situation. The most recent Medián poll, released this week, shows that Fidesz is set […]

by · March 16, 2018 · Politics
Szilárd Kalmár and the dates/times and locations where he is collecting signatures this week.

Hungary’s political parties begin their first election test today

The most diligent political parties and candidates were all doing the same thing this morning: picking up their nomination forms, so as not to waste any time gathering at least 500 valid signatures in the country’s 106 single-member electoral districts by 5 March. This first hurdle is meant to separate the wheat from the chaff. The stakes are high for […]

by · February 19, 2018 · Politics
László Domokos, former Fidesz politician, currently president of ÁSZ.

The Hungarian State Audit Office’s assault on democracy

Perhaps nothing sums up the state of the rule of law in Hungary better than the Hungarian State Audit Office’s (ÁSZ) selective enforcement of regulation aimed at penalizing opposition parties (and likely driving one of them into bankruptcy), whilst dismissing the same rules when it comes to the ruling Fidesz party. The head of the State Audit Office is none […]

by · January 9, 2018 · Politics
Kriszta Székely

Pride and fury: Do Hungarian opposition parties care about LGBTQ rights?

This past weekend marked the opening of Budapest’s annual Pride celebrations. Kriszta Székely, the 34 year old director of the Katona József Theatre, opened this year’s Pride with an impassioned and at times angry speech, in which she took to task not only the Orbán government, but the opposition too. Both the Népszava daily and the Magyar Narancs magazine published […]

by · July 4, 2017 · Politics
Viktor Orbán in Kossuth Rádió's studio on Friday morning.

Viktor Orbán “in a state of shock” after Trump’s withdrawal from Paris agreement

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán told Kossuth Rádió Friday morning that he was “in a state of shock,” after he heard that President Donald Trump will withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement on climate change. Mr. Orbán then noted that on the Hungarian right, and in Hungarian society, the science of climate change is not called into question. “In […]

by · June 2, 2017 · Politics
Miklós Hajnal

More than 40,000 Hungarians sign petition for referendum against Budapest 2024 Olympics

In just four days, Momentum Movement and opposition parties that have been assisting them, have gathered 40,000 signatures out of a required 138,000 to hold a referendum this spring demanding the withdrawal of the Budapest 2024 candidacy to host the Summer Olympics, according to Népszava. Activists still have over three weeks to keep collecting signatures. In a separate interview, Anna […]

by · January 24, 2017 · Politics
László Botka

Hungarian Socialists choose popular mayor as candidate for prime minister

The Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP) has named the 43 year old mayor of Szeged, László Botka, as its candidate for prime minister in the next parliamentary elections, expected in April 2018. Mr. Botka was merely 29 years old when he was first elected as mayor of Hungary’s third largest city in 2002 and he has since been re-elected three times. […]

by · December 23, 2016 · Politics
From Left to right: Tim Barber, Co-Founder of Canada2020., Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, András B. Göllner, Founder, Canadian Hungarian Democratic Charter

Justin Trudeau and the Orbán government’s war on liberal values

By: András B. Göllner As the Hungarian government’s anti-liberal, anti-refugee referendum campaign headed into its home stretch, liberal and progressive leaders from around the world, held their own rally in Montreal, under the patronage of Canada’s Prime Minister, The Right Honourable Justin Trudeau.  The location for this gathering of global progressives was Montreal’s famed Ritz Carlton Hotel, and the Musée des […]

by · October 7, 2016 · Focus
Viktor Szigetvári. Photo: civilhetes.net

Viktor Szigetvári: European People’s Party tolerance of Orbán is shameful

On Sunday, I exchanged a couple of emails with Viktor Szigetvári, chairman of Hungary’s centre-left opposition Együtt party. (Együtt means ‘Together’ in Hungarian and the party was previously associated with Gordon Bajnai, Hungary’s former prime minister.) I was pleased to see his activists engaged in civil disobedience, by defacing dozens of the xenophobic government billboards that now dot the landscape […]

by · June 8, 2015 · Politics