Péter Magyar, deputy leader and EP list-leading candidate of the Respect and Freedom (Tisza) party, said the Tisza party would prove to the Hungarian people that politics “can be beautiful, just and honest”. “Today marks the end of an era and the start of the future,” Magyar told Tisza party supporters as the election results were announced in the early hours of Monday. “The greatest result is that this is the beginning of the end for the [Fidesz] Alliance of Young Democrats and the System of National Cooperation.” “Despite the billions burned on propaganda, the war psychosis, the hate propaganda, the Hungarian people have seen through the charade,” he said. “Fidesz has never achieved such a weak result in the EP elections.” “There’s no turning back; this is the slope that [former Socialist PM] Ferenc Gyurcsany also started on, and it’s easy to pick up speed up on it.”
He said Fidesz had lost the public’s trust, and had a chance to decide to call early elections in Hungary in the coming months. He insisted that one reason to call early elections was because it was uncertain whether the government could “survive the austerity that will be coming because of the state of the budget”. He said it was up to ruling Fidesz to decide “whether they will use the next two years to continue robbing their country”.
In response to a question, he said he had not yet decided whether he would take up his mandate in the Budapest municipal assembly or the European Parliament. He noted that he had said in the past that he would not become an MEP, adding, however, that the party would be the one to decide. Magyar said Tisza would be joining the European People’s Party in the European Parliament. He said he had discussed this with Manfred Weber, the EPP’s leader, on the phone last week, and they had agreed that Tisza will send its official application after the results came in. Tisza could join the EPP group as early as next week, he said.
In Budapest assembly, Tisza secured 10 seats, with Fidesz equalizing, while the left-wing opposition garnered 7 seats, while the satirical Two-Tailed Dog party captured 2 mandates. Fidesz-KDNP won mayoral seats in 6 Budapest districts, opposition parties captured 14 districts, while independents have carried 4 districts.
With 93.73% of the vote counted, the Fidesz-Christian Democrat alliance won mayoral seats in 14 county seats in the local elections, while the opposition parties won 7 seats, and independents garnered 4 seats.