Budapest Mayor Karácsony Comments on Election Results
- 14 Apr 2022 4:59 AM
- Hungary Matters
In an address to the municipal assembly, Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony said the outcome of the April 3 general election clearly reflected the will of the voters and created new conditions for cooperation between the municipal council and the government.
He said voters in Budapest and in other parts of the country had expressed different views as to what kind of government they believed the country needed, noting that the opposition had won in 17 of Budapest’s 18 individual constituencies.
Budapest is the nation’s capital, Karácsony said, adding that though the city represented values that “are less popular”, it was not a city-state and did not want to secede from the nation. At the same time, he said, “Budapest is not a cash cow”.
The city cannot be deprived of resources and left to fend for itself, Karácsony said, arguing that taking away the city’s resources would constitute “an attack on the whole of the nation”.
The mayor said that together with the elected MPs they would draft a proposal on ensuring the funding for Budapest needed to keep it functioning.
The proposal will also cover issues such as the repeal of the law on the establishment of the Budapest campus of China’s Fudan University, he added.
Karácsony said the municipal council’s budget had been cut by close to 200 billion forints (EUR 528.2m) over the last two and a half years. He said the remaining two and a half years of his term would be “extremely difficult” even if the city council succeeds in establishing a new kind of partnership with the government.
Zsolt Wintermantel, a councillor of ruling Fidesz, said the high turnout in the general election gave his party a clear and strong mandate.
He said Karácsony should think about how his performance as mayor had contributed to performance gap between Fidesz and the left in the election.
He said Karácsony did not respect Budapest residents and refused to go before the media, and the municipal council did not function in a democratic manner.
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