Budapest: A currency in the race for opposition candidates together to fight Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in the national election next year opened a promising Friday campaign to “free” the country of the right-wing populist leader.
The Liberal Mayor of Budapest, Gergely Karacsony, who is one of five competitors to lead the coalition of the main opposition parties, talks with several hundred supporters who gather despite the early drizzle of autumn in the capital.
Karacsony said the next spring selection would be “celebration, rather than ridicule, democracy.” “Home tomorrow, we will release Hungary from the rules of Viktor Orban,” he said.
The six country opposition parties have decided to rule out ideological differences and coordinate their candidates after more than a decade of bitter losses for the Fidesz Orban Party, which holds the majority of two-thirds in parliament.
Despite popular in his country, Orban was often accused of criticism of the autocratic tendency, and seized Hungarian media control to control political narratives.
After his party swept the national election in 2018, an independent electoral observer found this contest free but unfair, and that “xenophobic intimidation and rhetoric, media bias, and frosted campaign financing (already) narrowed space for true political debate.” The main opposition contest, which starts on Saturday and will take place in two rounds, is part of its election strategy to establish a single joint candidate against Fidesz competitors in each electoral district.
The method caused a significant increase during city selection in 2019 when the coalition flipped Budapest leadership and most of the Hungarian big cities.
Judit Skirba, who attended a campaign on Friday, said he supports Karacsony but will choose another opposition candidate even if he loses primary.
“I came because, after a long time, I finally saw the face I was happy to see, someone who was honest and who, it seemed, it was credible,” he said.
The opposition politician said their unity strategy was the only way to defeat the Order after his party who wrote and unilaterally passed the New Election Law in 2011.
The law changed the selection system of the process of two rounds, and reduced the number.
Parliamentary chairs with almost half, something that critics say unfairly supporting the ruling party: In the 2014 general election, Fardsz won the two-thirds parliamentary majority while receiving less than 45% of the vote.
Orban has criticized the liberal parties to make common causes with JOBBIK who were previously far away, who had tried to control themselves as a conservative community party but in the past known for hiding the racist and anti-Semitic attitude openly.
But the recent poll shows the opposition together and the Orban Party in the neck and neck race, predicted by observers will be the closest in recent memory.
“There are very many of the US opposition voters who have long been waiting for opposition parties not to defeat each other, but Viktor Orban,” Karacony said.