Left-wing parties protest Paks upgrade in Budapest

(MTI) – Members and supporters of parties of the leftist opposition gathered for a demonstration in central Budapest on Sunday to protest a planned upgrade of Hungary’s nuclear power plant in Paks.

Former Socialist prime minister and head of the Democratic Coalition (DK) party Ferenc Gyurcsany told participants that “we will not give away our homes or the homeland” and insisted that “we will not be subtenants”.

“We reject that the prime minister, who happens to be called Viktor Orban, should behave like a baron and decide over our life,” Gyurcsany said, and called Orban a “liar, traitor”.

Gordon Bajnai, head of the E-PM alliance, referred to Hungary’s upcoming general election, and said that voters will “select a future” on April 6.

“We can choose between becoming a post-Soviet country, ‘Orbanistan’, or… we can vote for an independent and democratic European constitutional state, a ‘normal’ Hungary,” Bajnai said. He argued that the “the monument to this government is a power plant, which symbolises all the reasons why they have to go”.