Three lawmakers quit opposition Jobbik party

János Volner, a former deputy head of conservative Jobbik, announced on Tuesday that he would leave the party, along with lawmakers Erik Fülöp and István Apáti.

Speaking at a press conference prior to his disciplinary hearing, Volner said that “some leaders of Jobbik have already pronounced their sentence. The procedure is a show trial, designed to exclude me from my own party at the end.”

Jobbik is on the wrong path, and no longer represents the national cause, Volner insisted, accusing party leader Tamás Sneider of “degrading [the party] into an irrevocably sinking wreck.”

With Jobbik “out of the game”, there is no large party capable of addressing Fidesz voters, Volner said.

The only way to overturn the “current regime”, he said, would be to win over “hundreds of thousands, maybe even a million voters from the ruling party”.

Jobbik has given up that fight and its leaders have chosen politics merely to make a living, he said. “The discrepancy between Jobbik’s official policies and actions is enormous,” he said.