Steven N.
While a complete joint party list has not been decided on yet, the United for Hungary opposition coalition has chosen its top seven places on that list. The candidates who competed to be the nominee for prime minister take up the first five spots, followed by Bertalan Tóth from MSZP and Péter Ungár from LMP in the sixth and seventh places, respectively.
In Hungary’s parliamentary system, 93 seats in the National Assembly are allocated from party lists based on each party’s electoral results. As the six-party United for Hungary coalition is running as a single party in this election, they are combining their candidates onto a single national list.
By prior agreement, the first five places on the list will be composed of the five candidates from the prime ministerial primary election, ranked according to their final results.
This means that the top of the opposition’s national ticket will be the following politicians, with their party affiliations:
- Péter Márki-Zay (nominee for prime minister)
- Klára Dobrev, DK
- Gergely Karácsony, Dialogue
- Péter Jakab, Jobbik
- András Fekete-Győr, Momentum
- Bertalan Tóth, MSZP
- Péter Ungár, LMP
The United for Hungary coalition worked out some disputed issues at the party chair level without their prime ministerial-nominee Péter Márki-Zay present, reports Telex. If they are unable to agree in this way on specific campaign issues and decisions related to day-to-day operational issues, Péter Márki-Zay and his team will cast the deciding vote.
They also accepted 33 of Márki-Zay’s proposed changes to disputed parts of their policy platform, according to the article.
In addition, the party leaders resolved to set Hungary on the path of joining the Eurozone and introducing the common European currency within five years. Regarding the Budapest-Belgrade high speed rail line promoted by the current government, the parties and Péter Márki-Zay will not pledge to terminate the project, but review it and consider shutting it down if necessary.
At the same time, there are still controversial issues that divide the group. Jobbik, for example, vetoed support for gay marriage in the joint opposition platform, and no real decision, meaning an actual six-party resolution, has been made yet on Péter Márki-Zay’s request to put three Roma politicians on the party list.
Telex adds that the campaign will begin to get more visibly active this week: three million copies of their campaign newspaper are being printed up, and billboards will start to pop up with the opposition’s unified image and design.
[atv.hu]
Thanks for the comprehensive report. Jobbik -not unexpected- has some troublesome behaviors i.e. vetoing support for “gay marriage”. As you probably know, in US and much of western Europe, “gay marriage” is increasingly commented on as “same sex marriage”. If you think “gay marriage” is most faithful representation of how the concept of same sex marriage is understood in Hungary, you are certainly justified in using the term “gay marriage” and I would defer to you. In any case, there’s really no objective thing as gay marriage (or heterosexual marriage), only same sex or opposite sex marriage, which also avoids any hint of negative connotations. However, the Hungarian public may or may not understand my comment, so I leave the language used in English up to “Hungarian Politics”. Sadly, what ever term is used, the coalition of opposition parties is making a serious mistake in omitting same sex or gay marriage from its platform. I say serious mistake, as the regime persecution of any and all minorities is a symptom of the destruction of rule of law and the essential liberal values.
“the regime persecution of any and all minorities is a symptom of the destruction of rule of law and the essential liberal values.”
Well said, Misi. Yes you make a good point regarding terminology, and thank you for pointing that out to me. If I remember correctly the term used in the article was “melegházasság,” and I lazily just used the direct translation. But you are correct, and I’ll use “same sex marriage” from now on.
Unfortunately, I don’t think we hear “azonos neműek házasság” very often in Hungarian, although I see that it’s the official term used in Hungarian Wikipedia: https://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azonos_nem%C5%B1ek_h%C3%A1zass%C3%A1ga
Thank you for your thoughtful and kind reply. At age 74, good to see hope for the future! Still skiing and will resume on Sunday.