Interviewed by pro-government Hír TV, the person seen offering money to a group of men to get the Roma out to vote for the Fidesz candidate in the local by-elections in Baja (see BudaPost October 21), admitted that the video was staged. According to Blikk, the best-selling tabloid daily, the man alleged that the ‘”educational video clip” was commissioned by Socialist politicians in order to demonstrate how Fidesz activists buy votes. The MSZP dismissed the allegations as pure lies. Heti Világgazdaság,on whose internet site the footage originally surfaced, apologized for suggesting that the video was ‘”irrefutable proof” of Fidesz electoral malpractices in the Baja by-election.

The Socialists commission videos and then accuse the governing party of undemocratic practices, Zsolt Bayer writes in Magyar Hírlap. Bayer, who in an earlier piece on Saturday pointed out several blatant inconsistencies which suggest that the clip was staged, now compares the methods of the MSZP to the Hungarian Communist Party which in 1947 came to power after massive vote rigging. The pro-government pundit suspects that the Socialists. who called Fidesz a mafia after the publication of the video, will now try to blame the fake footage on the Roma in order to save face.

Without directly mentioning the video clip, Sándor Révész in Népszabadság contends that after what happened during the Baja by-election, Fidesz cannot legitimately win the parliamentary elections next year. The liberal columnist suggests that those elections will be illegitimate as Fidesz has restructured electoral districts, and dominates the public media and ‘”much of the public space”.

He considers the Baja by-election as final proof that the elections cannot be free and fair, for in Baja, he contends, Fidesz intimidated voters by filming those who talked to the activists of the left-wing parties. Révész suspects that potential sympathizers of the left will be denied jobs, careers and welfare benefits by the municipal councils. If the governing party wins, its victory will be based on illegitimate rules, Révész contends. “The only legitimate winner of the 2014 election can be the opposition”, he concludes.

Source: BudaPost

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