Gyurcsány calls on ruling party lawmakers to support call for early election

Ferenc Gyurcsány, the leader of the opposition Democratic Coalition (DK), has sent a letter to lawmakers of the ruling Fidesz and Christian Democrat (KDNP) parties, asking them to support a call to bring forward the general election.

Gyurcsány said on Facebook that he would ask MPs: “Are you afraid of the Hungarian people? Do you support the call for an early election?”

In the letter also posted online, Gyurcsány said recent developments in Hungarian public life, politics and the economy “have unrevocably rocked the credibility of the sitting government and eroded its public support.”

He insisted the government had dismantled the system of democratic checks and balances in Hungary. “After the 2022 elections, it has become even clearer that, according to the spirit of the constitution, the government is acting unlawfully,” he said.

“Lawful governance is not the appearance of lawful actions but compliance with the will of the people as enshrined in law. The government broke the will of the people when it took over and dismantled the republic,” he said.

Gyurcsány said voters had not given the government a mandate “to strive to obtain exclusive power unconstitutionally”. “Only fair elections mirror the will of the people … and a government based on [unfair] elections is unlawful.”

Moreover, the government, he added, had failed to fulfil all its key promises, failing to maintain household utility price caps, to protect small and medium-sized enterprises and put Hungary’s economy back on its feet, he said.

He insisted that the Orban government was in the process of introducing “post-Communist Hungary’s most severe austerity package”, even as they were neglecting to tackle “skyrocketing inflation and fuel prices” and a decade-high public debt and a low-value forint.