Region: The Fight for Second
The Budapest Times | 23rd February 2010

The approaching Hungarian elections have heated up the fight between the top parties

With the first round of the general elections due in just seven weeks, the one thing that has characterised the campaigns of the big two parties is a reluctance to give concrete policy details, particularly on the part of the main opposition party, the centre-right Fidesz-Christian Democrat alliance.

For the governing Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP), which is committed to continuing the strict austerity measures implemented by Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai’s crisis cabinet, a primary target has been pensioners. Hungary has three million retired people, which provides one of the largest pools of potential Socialist voters. MSZP prime ministerial candidate Attila Mesterházy last week continued reaching out to this sizeable demographic with repeated promises of pension bonuses and a clampdown on crime against the elderly. An MSZP government would be one of “responsibility, democracy, respect for the law, and progress,” Mesterházy said at a rally on Thursday...

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