Socialists to launch quota referendum campaign on September 1

Budapest (MTI) – The Socialist Party plans to launch its campaign for Hungary’s migrant quota referendum on September 1, party leader Gyula Molnár announced on Monday.

In the campaign, the party will urge voters to abstain from voting on Oct 2, Molnár said in Nyíregyháza, in north-eastern Hungary.

“We are deliberately avoiding the word ‘boycott’,” Molnár said.

“We accept the institution of the referendum and acknowledge that it is an important democratic tool,” he added.

Molnár said the party does, however, want to be on the vote counting and election committees and wants to participate in monitoring the voting process.

He reiterated his party’s stance that Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his ruling Fidesz party are using the referendum to pave the way for Hungary’s exit from the European Union.

For the Socialist Party, the referendum is about saying “no” to the prime minister’s political and tactical goals and saying “yes” to Europe, Molnár insisted.

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In the referendum Hungarians will be asked: “Do you want to allow the European Union to mandate the resettlement of non-Hungarian citizens to Hungary without the approval of parliament?”

Molnár said that a victory for the “no” vote would “move things in an impossible direction” while a win for the “yes” vote would just legitimise the referendum. He suggested that the referendum would have little impact, if any.