He thanked the opposition LMP, Dialogue for Hungary, Együtt and Liberal parties, as well as independent lawmaker Zoltán Kész and trade unions for their help in collecting signatures. The referendum will not only concern the issue of farmland sale but will be a vote “against ruling Fidesz and the government,” Gőgös said.

The referendum initiative was submitted by Gőgös at the beginning of this year with a view to asking the public if parliament should ban the sale of state-owned farmland by law. He said that 10%, or 200,000 hectares, of Hungary’s 2 million hectares of state-owned farmland had already been auctioned off under the government’s privatisation programme.

The ruling Fidesz party responded by calling the Socialists’ referendum initiative “frivolous”. János Halász, spokesman for the party’s parliamentary group, told MTI that during the time it took the Socialists to collect “a little over 200,000 signatures” for their initiative, the Fidesz party managed to collect two million signatures in support of the referendum on the European Union’s migrant quota scheme.

Halász said this made it clear that Hungarians consider migration and the quota plan the most important issues and that these are what they want to express their opinion on.

He said the election office would still have to review the signatures collected by the Socialists to validate them, noting that the leftist parties had failed to collect the required 200,000 signatures for a referendum on the introduction of a 2 million forint (EUR 6,310) cap on public officials’ salaries.

Republished with permission of Hungary Matters, MTI’s daily newsletter.

MTI photo: Bruzák Noémi