Fidesz proposes divvying out parliamentary positions based on 2/3rds to 1/3rd

Two of parliament’s six deputy speakers may be delegated by the opposition based on party lists, and, just like in the previous cycle, fifteen committees are planned to be set up under the same headings, Mate Kocsis, Fidesz’s group leader, said on Monday on the sidelines of negotiations preparing for the formation of the parliament.

The heads of ten committees will go to government representatives, with the same proportion of deputy heads, with twenty opposition MPs and forty government lawmakers.

Opposition members will head committees on national security, sustainable development, budget, welfare, and enterprise development, he said.

Kocsis said it was “unacceptable” that members of those parties which campaigned under the banner of the united opposition were now claiming to be six separate parties.

He said whoever refused to take part in the process to form parliament would not only forfeit their right to be a committee representative but would also no longer be eligible to be elected for posts.

The governing parties, he added, would act reciprocally: if a parliamentary group refuses to vote for officials from the government side, the governing parties will do likewise.

Kocsis complained that Democratic Coalition members had indicated several times that they would hold out on negotiations and had declared publicly an unwillingness to attend the inaugural meeting. Yet they had turned up to the meeting on allocating committee seats, he said.

Meanwhile, Kocsis also blasted Momentum politician Andras Fekete-Gyor for getting tangled up in the contradictions of his party’s stance on attending the inaugural session of parliament, and that he had tried to square attaining committee positions with a refusal to attend by setting out conditions in a letter in an attempt to save face.

Kocsis said there were expected to be seven opposition and two government groups in parliament, adding that the opposition was likely to benefit from this arrangement. The opposition will get to make seven speeches before the agenda as against two speeches from the government side, though interpellations and questions will be made according to the two-thirds to one-third formula. Parliamentary sessions are expected to be longer than hitherto, he added.

It will be up to the opposition parties themselves whom to appoint as committee heads and deputy heads, the Fidesz politician said.