Budapest, May 30 (MTI) – Hungary’s ruling Fidesz party has put forward a proposal concerning the makeup of the general assembly of Budapest, after local elections in the autumn.
Lajos Kosa, the party’s deputy leader, and Antal Rogan, head of the party’s parliamentary group, told a joint press conference on Friday that under the proposal, the 33-seat assembly would include the mayor of Budapest, 23 district mayors and nine other members to be elected from among mayoral candidates who did not win.
Only parties or organisations able to field candidates in at least 12 districts will be eligible for this latter selection method. The votes of non-winning mayoral candidates would be collected and the 9 seats distributed according to the number of votes cast on them, Kosa said.
The number of councillors in Budapest had been halved to 33 in a law passed in 2010.
Fidesz would also ease rules on the incompatibility of positions and allow, for instance, hospital and school directors to become members of local councils, Kosa said. The system of recommendations for candidacy would also be changed, reducing the required number of recommendation slips to be collected. For example the collection of 5,000 recommendation slips would be the required amount for the mayoral candidacy in Budapest, he added.
Rogan said the new system would be cheaper, simpler and more democratic. He said district mayors will only be allowed to receive their salaries as mayors, which will make the system cheaper. He added that the election is simpler, as voters will only have to fill in three ballots and more democratic, because the candidates are not party delegates but representatives to be elected directly by the people. This will make the Budapest administration more efficient, too, with better coordination between district and overall city interests, Rogan added.
Rogan said the proposal will be put to parliament on Friday and it could be passed by lawmakers by mid-June.
Photo: MTI – Noemi Bruzak