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SOCIALIST PARTY POINTS TO ST. STEPHEN’S LEGACY

King St. Stephen chose Western Europe and the Socialist Party believes this is the path Hungary should follow, Bertalan Tóth, the party’s leader, said in a video posted on the Socialists’ Facebook page, marking the August 20 national holiday on Monday. Tóth said August 20 was about celebrating St. Stephen’s founding of the Hungarian state and his decision to integrate Hungary into the West. He said St. Stephen’s admonitions made it clear that a king’s strongest virtue should be humility, not arrogance or hate.

“Today in Hungary … we see a government that preaches Christian democracy and the defence of Christian values and in defence of these it sticks stigmatising stickers on the doors of rights organisations, sends police officers after homeless people, uses police to evict Hungarian families and attacks the independent Hungarian judiciary,” the party leader said. “These policies have driven away 600,000 of our Hungarian compatriots and forced tens and hundreds of thousands of families into debt bondage.” He said the Socialist Party favours the path to Western Europe laid out by St. Stephen.

“We will fight for the rights of foreign currency loan holders,” Tóth said. “We will fight to make sure families don’t lose their homes and we will fight for the return of young Hungarians who have left the country.”