Listening to the ‘voice of the nation’

The Tisza party had asked its supporters to take a stand on socially relevant issues with the ‘Voice of the Nation’ initiative. Almost 1.15 million votes were received, the majority of which were in favour of the Tisza Party’s stance. With this in mind, its leader declared at the results announcement on Sunday evening in Budapest that Hungary wanted to become a proud and reliable ally of NATO and a fully-fledged member of the EU once again.

By retrieving the EU funds blocked due to systemic corruption, the Tisza party will create the basis for ‘economic, societal and social recovery’. The term of office of the prime minister is to be limited to a maximum of two legislative periods or eight years, his salary would be reduced from more than HUF 7 million per month today to HUF 2.5 million, and politicians’ salaries would otherwise be halved. The cities and municipalities are to regain their sovereignty over education, health and social services, and the tax system is to become more ‘humane’.

Magyar admitted that the participants in the survey were most divided on the issue of Fidesz’s reduction of income tax to the standard rate of 9%. Assets of 5 billion forints (12.2 million euros) or more would be subject to a special tax. The value added tax (VAT) on healthy food would be reduced to 5% and the VAT on medicines to 0%. Pensioners would be allowed to use a special SZÉP card to spend a maximum of 200,000 forints a year on basic foodstuffs, medicines and healthcare services. The ‘Road to Prison’ programme is to take back illegally appropriated state assets from oligarchs close to Fidesz.

According to Magyar, Ukraine’s EU membership is also a critical issue, ‘the opinion of the majority of Hungarians is not clearly recognisable’. (He said this despite the fact that the result of the poll was 58.2% in favour, which is why Fidesz immediately claimed that this figure was to be understood ‘in a pact with Brussels’, which wants to see a Ukraine-friendly puppet government in Hungary). The Tisza party wants to organise a legally binding referendum at a later date, when the framework conditions are better known and the question of EU accession is actually on the agenda, its leader promised.