“But that is not what this question is about.” He said his party’s job must now be to explain the government’s referendum question to voters. “It’s difficult to say what the question is actually about,” he said. Concerning the two referendums initiated by his party, Tóbiás said the Socialists will urge voters to block the government’s state-owned land privatisation programme and support putting a 2 million forint cap on public officials’ salaries.

Tóbiás said the party aims to collect a total of 250,000 to 260,000 supporting signatures for their referendum initiatives to be certain that they have the 200,000 required by law. He said the 100,000 signatures the party had already collected for each question would have enabled parliament to approve including all three questions on the same referendum ballot.

Parliament approved the referendum on migrant quotas on Tuesday but rejected a proposal by the Socialists to hold the government-initiated referendum on the same day as their two referendums.

The ruling Fidesz party said in response that the Socialist Party wants to block Hungarians from having their say on Brussels’ migrant quota scheme.

“The Socialists did not support building the border fence, nor protecting the borders and now they are challenging the referendum too. … Apart from the Socialists, every Hungarian understands what the referendum question is about. It is about giving the people a chance to express their opinion about Brussels’ planned mandatory migrant relocation scheme,” they said.

Source: www.hungarymatters.hu
Republished with permission of Hungary Matters, MTI’s daily newsletter.

MTI photo: Bruzák Noémi