Steven N.
After Viktor Orbán and Ferenc Gyurcsány delivered theirs recently, Péter Márki-Zay on Thursday also gave a speech evaluating the past year, but the joint candidate for prime minister of the united opposition provided an opportunity for his six-party allies to offer their assessments as well.
Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony, speaking on behalf of Dialogue, called Viktor Orbán a “shifty businessman,” and noted that we should be using the word “and” more frequently than “or”:
Left-wing and right-wing, rural and Budapester, the point is to find each other, so that the people of power are replaced by the power of the people.
-said the mayor.
Máté Kanász-Nagy then spoke for LMP, warning that the lives of the poor in Hungary are on an unsustainable path, and that over time the normal functioning of society will be unsustainable.
Speaking in the name of MSZP, Ágnes Kunhalmi noted that Orbán’s System of National Cooperation (NER) had not raised living standards in Hungary in over 12 years of exercising power.
Momentum President Anna Donáth said that the government’s goal was to maintain a system serving the privileged few, which has pushed millions of others into an insecure existence, perhaps for centuries.
Jobbik’s Chair Péter Jakab noted that the opposition had learned the lesson from 2018 that they had to unite together to defeat the current system.
Make the thieves pay, and a decent living for every Hungarian – this is what I say at every street event.
-Jakab said as he closed his brief remarks.
MEP Klára Dobrev from DK was the last representative to speak from Hungary’s six-party alliance. She claimed that although Fidesz is waging a dirty campaign against the opposition and the free press, the party’s leaders are clearly having trouble sleeping at night, and have every reason to do so.
Péter Márki-Zay: Hungary is a Looted Country
Opposition leader Péter Márki-Zay was then introduced by former ATV newscaster András Simon as a “mortgage-paying father of seven.”
The prime minister-designate began by saying that he had previously put his trust in Fidesz and Viktor Orbán, but became disillusioned in them. Orbán had an exceptional opportunity to make a real difference with his two-thirds majority in Parliament, but he did not take advantage of this opportunity, Márki-Zay believes.
Hungary lags behind other countries even within the region, with unlimited power only having brought unlimited corruption to the country.
Márki-Zay thinks it unacceptable that Orbán stokes fear in Hungarians by “settling large numbers of migrants” in the country, and “incites resentment against homosexuals, even against Fidesz homosexuals.”
Today, Hungary is a looted country with devastated education, health care, and human relations, where the Prime Minister said nothing about the 43,000 people who have died from Covid in his speech assessing the past year, said Márki-Zay.
According to the opposition’s candidate for prime minister, Hungary has the highest share of poverty and the lowest minimum wage in the EU, where people increasingly fear losing even what little they have.
Hungary is an unhappy country, where many live in insecurity while the few are very rich.
-claimed Péter Márki-Zay.
Orbán is so far removed from reality, he claimed, that the Prime Minister only dares to visit kindergartens in a bulletproof vest.
The mayor of Hódmezővásárhely said it was incomprehensible why so little is spent on Hungarian health care. And while the Hungarian government decided to wage war on health workers in the middle of the epidemic, the government in Austria chose to fight the epidemic with free tests.
Now that the Prime Minister feels he is in danger, he has begun to return some of the money he had stolen from the country, said Péter Márki-Zay. Hungary has the opposition to thank for this, because without them, Orbán would not feel the need to hand out such huge welfare benefits.
But now, even the EU is fed up with Orbán’s thievery, he said, which is why the European Court of Justice has ruled that the European Commission can now use the rule of law mechanism to withhold EU funds from Hungary.
Péter Márki-Zay said that he could have lived a quiet life without being “portrayed on posters as a small, evil antagonist,” but he became a politician so he could do something for his homeland.
After becoming mayor of Hódmezővásárhely, he managed to break up the local NER, end the stealing, reduce the country’s highest building tax, and make public transportation free.
Even Fidesz supporters have been better off since we replaced Fidesz [in the town], and this is what we will do nationwide on April 3.
-stated Péter Márki-Zay.
The opposition leader then promised to give pay raises to teachers, health workers, and law enforcement while stopping “prestige” investments projects and new stadium construction.
In addition, a Márki-Zay government will reduce the VAT on staple food products to 5% and end the state monopoly on tobacco. The opposition will also restore Hungary’s border guard, and extradite “Islamist criminals let in by Viktor Orbán” to other countries.
He also vowed to review the contracts for the Paks II nuclear power plant expansion project and the Belgrade-Budapest railway line, and pledged that those who have “betrayed the country will be held accountable.” The new government will also assist journalists with their investigative work.
Those who are hoping to change the government, said Péter Márki-Zay, should vote exclusively for the opposition list and its candidates.
He again related a story in which he told his son that Viktor Orbán was like a child who terrorizes the other students in the class. The only way to put him in his place is if everyone in the class stands up to him, said the opposition politician.
At the end of his speech, Péter Márki-Zay announced a rally on March 15 in support of a new government, encouraging everyone to show up at that event, as well as at the polls on April 3.
[Azonnali][Photo: Péter Márki-Zay / Facebook]
