Probably the best choice, atleast regarding surviving a Fidesz attack campaign.
All we need to see now is if the Hungarian left is mature enough to hold their noses and vote for the guy, rather than abstaining and giving Fidesz another term.
For non-Hungarians – this is pretty unexpected and huge. MZ was not considered to have any realistic chance to win the primaries until last week.
For Orbán, he is the most problematic opponent – he’s a successful conservative mayor who won the seat in a once Fidesz-stronghold, a devout christian with 7 children. At the same time he repeatedly expressed he has no desire to push his social and religious views onto the whole of the country. So far, the best the state media could conjure up is that he is only “pretending” to be conservative, but worry not, I’m sure their little cogs are working hard generating new slanders.
There is a real chance he can attract votes of ex-Fidesz voters who are disillusioned by the oligarchy and endless corruption, plus Jobbik voters will likely feel comfortable voting him too. Like it or not, Hungary is a predominantly right-wing country, so a right-wing oppositon PM candidate is our best shot at deplacing Orbán.
While Dobrev had her credentials and is staunchly pro-EU (well so is MZ), she was simply way too undesirable for anyone not on the left, being the wife of the infamous ex-PM who admitted to lying and ran the country into the 2008 crisis.
I am a non-Hungarian, Croatian neighbour, and a person who prefers Fidesz. Marki-Zay is a very cool guy, he has basically all the same political views as I (exepct the EU policy) and I think that he is by far the best choice for Hungary, but, what frightens me is DK.
If Marki-Zay does eventually become Prime Minister, he would have to agree with all opposition parties, and, I don’t think that DK (read Gyurcsany and his wife) would want to miss a chance to get to power yet again. All the parties would have to agree on every single issue to have a majority in the Parliament. We have seen the examples in the past that the complicated government coalitions don’t work. Italians with CDX and CSX are the best example. One party leaves the coalition, and it is over. In Serbia there was also a huge coalition (DOS) just for the sake of removing Slobodan Milošević in 2000. DOS fell apart just one year after gaining power, and 12 years later, the whole process was reversed, they got a new, even worse dictator in power.
It is not the question if the 6-party coalition will break up, it is the question when will it break up, and will it even manage to get to election day.
Peter Marki-Zay, you are a great guy. I wish you all the best, and, if you lose in Hungary, please move here in Croatia, we are in desperate need of a guy like you!
Lets see how this plays out. I have read somewhere that Hungary has some exotic way of allocating seats to votes. To put it mildly. One could also say: The system was rigged to support the big party. Is that true and could that backfire on Orban?
5 comments
It’s over, Dobrev just congratulated MZP.
Probably the best choice, atleast regarding surviving a Fidesz attack campaign.
All we need to see now is if the Hungarian left is mature enough to hold their noses and vote for the guy, rather than abstaining and giving Fidesz another term.
For non-Hungarians – this is pretty unexpected and huge. MZ was not considered to have any realistic chance to win the primaries until last week.
For Orbán, he is the most problematic opponent – he’s a successful conservative mayor who won the seat in a once Fidesz-stronghold, a devout christian with 7 children. At the same time he repeatedly expressed he has no desire to push his social and religious views onto the whole of the country. So far, the best the state media could conjure up is that he is only “pretending” to be conservative, but worry not, I’m sure their little cogs are working hard generating new slanders.
There is a real chance he can attract votes of ex-Fidesz voters who are disillusioned by the oligarchy and endless corruption, plus Jobbik voters will likely feel comfortable voting him too. Like it or not, Hungary is a predominantly right-wing country, so a right-wing oppositon PM candidate is our best shot at deplacing Orbán.
While Dobrev had her credentials and is staunchly pro-EU (well so is MZ), she was simply way too undesirable for anyone not on the left, being the wife of the infamous ex-PM who admitted to lying and ran the country into the 2008 crisis.
I am a non-Hungarian, Croatian neighbour, and a person who prefers Fidesz. Marki-Zay is a very cool guy, he has basically all the same political views as I (exepct the EU policy) and I think that he is by far the best choice for Hungary, but, what frightens me is DK.
If Marki-Zay does eventually become Prime Minister, he would have to agree with all opposition parties, and, I don’t think that DK (read Gyurcsany and his wife) would want to miss a chance to get to power yet again. All the parties would have to agree on every single issue to have a majority in the Parliament. We have seen the examples in the past that the complicated government coalitions don’t work. Italians with CDX and CSX are the best example. One party leaves the coalition, and it is over. In Serbia there was also a huge coalition (DOS) just for the sake of removing Slobodan Milošević in 2000. DOS fell apart just one year after gaining power, and 12 years later, the whole process was reversed, they got a new, even worse dictator in power.
It is not the question if the 6-party coalition will break up, it is the question when will it break up, and will it even manage to get to election day.
Peter Marki-Zay, you are a great guy. I wish you all the best, and, if you lose in Hungary, please move here in Croatia, we are in desperate need of a guy like you!
Lets see how this plays out. I have read somewhere that Hungary has some exotic way of allocating seats to votes. To put it mildly. One could also say: The system was rigged to support the big party. Is that true and could that backfire on Orban?