The prime minister candidate of the opposition Socialist and Párbeszéd parties, Gergely Karácsony, has said he wants to steer Hungary away from “the politics of hatred and division” towards a western, just and knowledge-based society.
Speaking on the fifth anniversary of the party which he co-leads, Karácsony said he would distance Hungary from the “Fidesz nightmare” and build the country’s future on the basis of cooperation.
Referring to the Socialist Party’s decision to cooperate with Párbeszéd in the election campaign, the current mayor of the Zugló district of Budapest said the Socialists had taken a “massive step” by accepting the smaller party into its fold rather than making the decision “a matter of prestige”.
Karácsony, for his part, will have his name on the Socialist Party’s national list in return for running as their PM candidate.
He said a party of the left-wing social democrats and a left-wing green party were not under any illusions that they are capable of representing a unified nation. But they believe in cooperation, and this is something they wish to further broaden: their doors were open to anyone who wants change, he added.
The Párbeszéd co-leader said
the opposition alliance did not intend to revive the state of affairs preceding the 2010 election but wanted instead to introduce a new social democratic model to Hungary.
Karacsony also commented that leader of the Democratic Coalition, former prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsány, may get a top spot on a left-wing joint national list.
Fidesz said in a statement that Karácsony was nothing other than “a turncoat” who had started his political career with the liberal SZDSZ party, carried on in the green LMP party, supported former liberal prime minister Gordon Bajnai, turned his back on LMP and founded Párbeszéd. Now, the statement added, he has formed a pact with the Socialists and had “become the face of the Socialists”.
“Soon he will have gone through every left-wing party and made a pact with everyone,” Balázs Hidveghi, Fidesz’s communications chief, said in the statement.
Photo: MTI