Opposition PM candidate: 2022 election ‘over the freedom of the Hungarian nation’

Péter Márki-Zay, the opposition’s prime ministerial candidate, addressing supporters at a commemoration of the 1956 revolution in Budapest on Saturday, said the message of joining together embodied in uprising 65 years ago was still relevant today, and next year’s general election would be a “colossal battle”.

Márki-Zay said the battle was over “the freedom of the Hungarian nation”. “Together for a Free Hungary!” he declaimed.

He called for the ruling Fidesz party to be denied a parliamentary majority next spring.

“With total national unity, now we can demonstrate that we are the majority,” he said, adding that the current power holders were “morally unacceptable”.

Márki-Zay, who is also the mayor of Hódmezővásárhely, said the opposition’s current battle should be inspired by the youth of 1956, “but it should also be peaceful, not armed”.

“We’re fighting for a country of love,” he said, adding that for this, every single Hungarian was needed.

Gyurcsány: opposition parties running together far more important than DK

Speaking at the joint event of Hungary’s opposition parties, Márki-Zay said that people today were as sick and tired as they had been in 1956. They were fed up, he insisted, with the “party state”, with “falling behind the West”, and with “poverty, intimidation, political cronyism, mounting Russian influence and hate campaigns.”

“Only together can we win,” he said, adding: “Go Hungary! Go Hungarians!”

Márki-Zay pledged to hold a referendum on adopting a new constitution and an independent judiciary, and he vowed for Hungary to join the European Public Prosecutor’s Office. He promised freedom of the press, the autonomy of local government and a new electoral law. He also vowed that Hungary would join the single currency.

The foreign media picked up the Hungarian pre-election

The prime ministerial candidate also promised to keep Hungary’s fence on the southern border intact. But, he added, “criminal migrants imported by Fidesz” would be expelled from the country.

Officials who had profited from migration and deals to import the Chinese coronavirus vaccine “for double the market price”, as well as ventilators that went unused, would be held accountable, he said.