LMP congress: Ungar calls for ‘alternative’ candidate for Budapest mayor

LMP’s candidate would “represent the 60 percent of Budapest residents using public transport” in the long run, and work “to develop rather than shrink services”, Ungar said.

Budapest needs parks and social housing “rather than skyscrapers and luxury homes”, he said, adding that LMP would “not make concessions” on that subject.

Ungar declined to name a candidate saying that LMP was “not in search of a coat to complete a button”, adding that “there is joy in anticipation”.

Slamming Gergely Karacsony, the incumbent, opposition mayor of Budapest, Ungar suggested Karacsony’s priority was “to pose as [PM] Viktor Orban’s victim on Facebook”.

Ungar also criticised the other opposition parties in Budapest for “pretending to support cooperation whereas none of them are really eager that it should happen”.

Ungar insisted that political discourse within the opposition was “about persons rather than content”. He said “every election or referendum is about Viktor Orban, while the opposition sees Ferenc Gyurcsany as the cause of all their problems or the solution to everything and Karacsony as the only hope”.

Ungar said his party was the only opposition party “that can define itself”. LMP is Hungary’s only green party, for which “the question if Lake Balaton should be surrounded by concrete” is a greater priority than “whether there is a police cordon around the prime minister’s office”.

“LMP is familiar with the dangers of GMO,” he said, adding that his party would “fight against battery plants in Hungary to the last minute.”

Ungar added, however, that “the EU is not the source of all good things and markets are not omnipotent”.

Ungar said LMP was the “only party that has drawn conclusions from the dramatic defeat of the 2022 election” and offered a “completely different alternative to the unnerving spiritual civil war raging in Hungarian politics”.