Former PM Gyurcsány launches two-week campaign tour

Ferenc Gyurcsány, the leader of the opposition Democratic Coalition (DK), has launched a two-week campaign tour of the country in a camper van.

Gyurcsány told a press conference on Monday that he would only interrupt the tour once, to return to Budapest for the by-election in Budapest’s 4th district.

The aim of the tour is “to go to people rather than inviting them to come to the umpteenth forum”, he said, adding that he would make 7-9 stops a day to meet small groups.

Asked whether the tour was a way of bypassing town hall meetings to avoid comparisons with the crowds attracted by Tisza leader Péter Magyar, Gyurcsány said the fight was about the election and not on such matters. Crowd sizes “are not what [politicians] need to fight over; they have to prepare to … best understand the problems of the country.”

Gyurcsány said “the two largest parties are exhausting the country with new, impossible and senseless public surveys that are without rhyme or reason.”

“The world most people have lived their lives in … is falling apart, and a depraved villain of historic proportions is leading the world’s most influential country, wreaking havoc every day,” Gyurcsány said. He added that in those circumstances, “it is disappointing to see how little greatness and generosity there is in those striving to topple [Prime Minister] Viktor Orbán’s regime.”