Marki-Zay: Election to usher in ‘government of humanity’
“For 12 years Hungary has had a government that has always been at war with someone and has consistently lost those wars,” Marki-Zay said, pointing to “the government’s struggles against public debt . liberalism, migration, inflation” and its response to the pandemic as examples.
Marki-Zay called Prime Minister Viktor Orbán “a mercenary and servant” of Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying he shared part of the blame for the situation in Ukraine.
He added, at the same time, that the government had fulfilled most of the opposition’s demands by backing the European Union’s sanctions against Russia. Now, he said, all they wanted was for Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto to return an award recently received “for serving Russian interests” and for public and commercial media to “stop pushing Orban’s Putin propaganda”.
Emphasising Hungary’s commitment to the West, Marki-Zay said it was not Orbán but rather Hungary’s EU and NATO memberships that kept the country safe.
Bence Tordai, deputy group leader of Parbeszed, said the war in Ukraine was a culmination of “a two decades-long offensive by the Russian president in which he was knowingly joined by Viktor Orbán, his business partner, friend and ally”.
Tordai insisted that Orbán was still working to slow down joint European action and weaken the response by NATO, “because that’s what he’s been doing since 2010”.
Many in the crowd carried EU, Hungarian and Ukrainian flags.
The government reacted by saying that the opposition was “only adding fuel to the fire” by staging the demonstration. “We will not allow anyone to drag Hungary into the war,” the Government Information Centre (KTK) said in a statement.
The government puts Hungary and the Hungarian people’ safety first, it added.
“This is why Hungarian soldiers must not be a part of this conflict, just as we will not send weapons to Ukraine, either,” the KTK said.
It said the left and Marki-Zay were behaving irresponsibly and their “reckless remarks” posed a danger to the security of Hungary and the safety of its people.
