Prime Minister Viktor Orbán met the acting chairman of the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians in his office on Friday, and they confirmed ties between the Hungarian government and the party, the prime minister’s press chief said. Former leader István Pásztor, who had headed the largest ethnic Hungarian party in Serbia for 16 years, died after a short and serious illness at age 67 on October 30, Bertalan Havasi noted in a statement. His son, Bálint Pásztor, a parliamentary group leader and head of the Subotica city council, will be acting chairman until the party’s next general meeting, he added. At the meeting, Pásztor briefed Orbán about the election campaign in Serbia and discussed opportunities to further develop Serbian-Hungarian relations, which, the statement added, had improved significantly in recent years. They agreed to continue an economic development programme in Vojvodina and were in agreement that the opening of a Szeged-Subotica railway link and the extension of opening hours at small border crossings were vitally important to ethnic Hungarians, and both sides would take steps to achieve them.