Key Opposition Party in Hungary Now Has New Leader

  • 21 Oct 2024 5:52 AM
Key Opposition Party in Hungary Now Has New Leader
The opposition Socialist Party elected Imre Komjathi as its leader at the party's congress on Saturday.

Komjathi, a former co-leader of the party who on Saturday was elected for a two-year period, told a press conference after the vote that the party congress chose Lajos Korozs to be the deputy chairman and Istvan Hiller the head of the national board.

Komjathi said the congress marked the start of the Socialist Party's 2026 election campaign.

"We will be the human voice of Hungarian political life," Komjathi said. "The Socialist Party will be the left-wing conscience of Hungarian political life."

Komjathi, who is also an MP, told MTI that his party's most important promise was that it would have a parliamentary group after the 2026 election. The first step towards achieving this, he added, was finding their 106 individual candidates.

He said that having visited the party's local chapters around the country over the last two years, he was aware of the state of the party, adding that the starting point was "promising".

Komjathi said 2026 was "too far away" for the party to be concerned with forming alliances, adding that in the summer they had reached out to the left-wing parties and movements that were "finding their place". The Socialists, he said, wanted to be a home for these left-wing movements, but "time will tell if this will evolve into an electoral party or an umbrella organisation".

He said he will nominate a new party director who is not a politician at the first meeting of the party's board.

Komjathi and Agnes Kunhalmi resigned as the Socialists' co-leaders in June over the result of the European Parliament and local elections.

Meanwhile, Gyurcsany: DK to field candidates in all 106 electoral districts in 2026

The Democratic Coalition (DK) will field candidates in all 106 individual constituencies in the 2026 general election, Ferenc Gyurcsany, the leftist opposition party's leader, said on Saturday.

DK will start announcing their candidates in early November, Gyurcsany said at an event marking the 13th anniversary of the founding of the party.

In his speech streamed online, Gyurcsany called out Prime Minister Viktor Orban for controlling "our common narrative" and said that, today, only the Democratic Coalition could deliver a "credible narrative".

He said the reason for the opposition's loss in the 2022 election was not that they had joined forces but rather that they had not had their own shared story.

Gyurcsany said Hungary's interests lay in making Europe stronger, arguing that it was through Europe that Hungary could participate in the global competition. He said Hungary was a sovereign country, but also called for strengthening Europe's sovereignty.

He called for the establishment of a new alliance of democracies that espouse Western values.

Klara Dobrev, the party's MEP, said she was proud that DK had never compromised on the kind of Europe, Hungary and world it represented.

MTI Stock Photo - for illustrative purposes only

Source: 
MTI - The Hungarian News Agency, founded in 1881.

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