LMP responds after Demeter comes under pressure to quit

LMP has rebuffed a call on lawmaker Márta Demeter, who is running to co-lead the green opposition party, to resign after she claimed that Flóra Orbán, the two-year-old daughter of a Hungarian army officer serving in Cyprus who had flown on a Hungarian military aircraft, was the prime minister’s daughter.

Fidesz group leader Máte Kocsis demanded Demeter’s resignation for “mixing up one of the prime minister’s daughters with a two-year-old girl of the same name” and disclosing “sensitive” military information “in the hope of political gain”.

LMP said on Thursday that Demeter had reviewed publicly accessible documents containing a list of passengers on the military aircraft bound for Hungary from Cyprus before suggesting that a member of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s family had travelled on the plane.

Since the ministry of defence had refused to disclose any information regarding the flight in question, Demeter viewed documents in the public domain and submitted a written query on the matter to the ministry, LMP’s spokesman Máté Kanász-Nagy said at a press conference.

He cited Demeter as saying that she accessed the documents legally, adding that LMP would take action once in possession of the ministry’s response.

Referring to the Fidesz group leader, Kanász-Nagy said that Kocsis “has nothing to do with the matter; he is not even a member of government … he has no remit to call on anyone to do anything.”