Index – Homeland – “They cheated us” – blurted out the opposition representative, referring to the joint scam with Fidesz

“The DK-MSZP pact makes it difficult for the opposition to win in Kőbánya, which is why Momentum is running independently,” announced Diána Stemler, Momentum’s Kőbánya representative, adding: “Momentum’s Kőbánya organization has been working for the past year to continue should also be an opposition majority, and this time the opposition candidate could also win the post of mayor against Fidesz. We withdrew from the mayoral election to help this chance. In this way, it would have been possible to finally give Kőbánya a real impetus. With that, it seems we are left alone.”

Since May of last year, we have tried several times to initiate negotiations with the local leader and mayoral candidate of the Old Left Party about cooperation, but he keeps avoiding it. The first meeting finally took place in February of this year, after all the micro-parties, which in practice barely existed, agreed one by one, promising them candidate places. At that time, it became clear to us, and since then we have continuously received evidence that the victory of the opposition is not important to them

said Diána Stemler.

The representative claims that they only insisted on one condition: “We didn’t want socialist deputy mayor Csaba Somlyódy to join the board on our backs. In 2019, he was the joint opposition mayoral candidate, but it quickly became clear that he is not only unfit for this task, but actually hinders the candidates. There was neither a program nor a real campaign, sometimes it appeared, but there was no thanks either. He lost the election by a large margin, but thanks to the board being overturned by immediate candidates, he became deputy mayor alongside Róbert D. Kovács of Fidesz. This meant that under his supervision the acquisitions of companies with dubious pasts, even those linked to parties, increased, and in heated and controversial situations he usually defended the Fidesz position as deputy mayor. In the meantime, we learned about his past: he was the party treasurer of the MSZP in Budapest and one of the owners of Centrum Kft., notorious for parking issues.”

According to Diána Stemler, “DK initially apparently accepted this condition, but before signing the agreement, it turned out that they had tricked us, because behind our backs, Somlyódy was promised the second, guaranteed place on the district list and a deputy mayor’s position. This ensures that you will still receive the hundreds of thousands in salary, for zero performance. We tried to stay constructive until the last moment. Even the day before the start of the campaign, we came up with a solution proposal acceptable to everyone: we offered to launch in a coordinated manner. We would only run candidates in those districts in current colors, which would have been ours according to the agreement, if they did not run anyone against us in return, and then we have nothing to do with their list”.

This offer was not even appreciated for a response. We learned that they don’t mind if we run completely separately from the fact that they announced in a public post on the morning of the start of the campaign: they nominated their own candidates in all the districts. So we go separately. This decision was made easier for us by their unacceptable tone of negotiation style and the fact that they clearly do not want to win, because they are satisfied with the current mess of the joint city management with Fidesz. For us, it is especially motivating that we do not have to run together with parties that govern together with Fidesz. We don’t have to bear silently that lighting is planned for millions for the plastic Kőbánya sign in Óhegy Park, while the children in our city’s social housing have to live in black mold, and their rooms have rammed earth instead of floors. We will work for Kőbánya with clean hands and a clean heart. It seems that this is only possible without the parties of the old left

– emphasized the representative of the moment.

Local government and European Parliament elections will be held in Hungary on June 9, 2024, and the campaign period officially started on April 20. You can read our weekend campaign report here.