NGO leader against MSZP domination on the left

The leader of the Milla movement says a new pole should be set up within the opposition. He agrees that the left wing should form an alliance at the next election, but does not want that alliance to be ruled by the Socialist Party.

In an interview on Galamus, Péter Juhász, chief organiser of the Milla (One million for press freedom) movement says previous Socialist governments did not refrain from “narrowing the scope of democracy.” Milla held the largest anti-government demonstration since 2010 in January this year (see BudaPost, January 4) and is planning a mass rally for the anniversary of the 1956 revolution, on October 23rd. Juhász assures Galamus that he favours a broad alliance of anti-government forces ahead of the elections scheduled for 2014, but wants NGOs to hold a strong position within it. Regardless of their political colouring, he says, successive governments have restricted democracy over the past 20 years, and have all worked to centralise political power and limit civic control. He agrees with the interviewer, Vera Lánczos, a regular contributor on Galamus, that the constitutional changes introduced by the present government should be reversed, but contends that the present state of affairs is a direct consequence of previous developments. If in 2006, the left-wing government had yielded to civic pressure after former PM Gyurcsány’s “we lied” speech was made public, “we might be facing a different situation today,” Juhász muses. (For references to Mr Gyurcsány’s speech at Őszöd in 2006, see BudaPost, June 2011 through September 2012).

Tags: Gyurcsány, NGOs, opposition