Opposition mayor candidate: Only local council autonomy ‘can counterbalance government powers’

It is only local councils based on the power of local communities that will be able to counterbalance the central government’s concentration of powers, Gergely Karácsony, the main opposition Budapest mayoral candidate, said at a conference on Saturday.

In a lecture given to the Hungarian Solidarity Movement, Karácsony said democratic competition in Hungary only appeared real from afar, and social and political competition “behind the scenes” was notably unbalanced. He said the government’s concentration of powers was virtually impossible to eliminate by political means, so it was safe to say that the current system was a party state.

Karácsony said that in a normal democracy, pro-government mayors braved conflict with the cabinet when necessary in order to protect their local community.

Yet mayors of the ruling Fidesz party, he insisted, dared not speak out against government interests, even if such reticence risked their re-election prospects.