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Two MSZP mayors join the DK

February 27th, 2020

Commenting on the decision of two recently elected Budapest district mayors to leave the Socialist Party and join the Democratic Coalition, a left-wing columnist believes such ‘tug-of-war games’ within the opposition will harm their electoral chances.

After winning their posts as joint opposition candidates nominated by the MSZP, the mayors of the 3rd and 18th district of Budapest announced that they would continue their activities within the Democratic Coalition. Without mentioning the Democratic Coalition and its leader, Ferenc Gyurcsány by name, Socialist Party Chairman Bertalan Tóth told the press his party would not allow anyone to trample it underfoot.

In Népszava, György B. Nagy deplores the habit of luring politicians from one opposition party to another. Although the defection of the two mayors has made the DK group the strongest group in the Budapest City Council, the move is sowing the seeds of acrimony in the relations of the left-wing parties and feeds mutual mistrust, he suggests. He admits nonetheless that in the competition among opposition parties for domination, Mr Gyurcsány has scored two points with the defection of the two mayors, as their districts are also electoral constituencies and the local mayors may play a decisive role in nominating the joint opposition candidate for MP. All the same, Nagy writes, the left as a whole may lose more than what the DK gains, as this latest manoeuvre sends a message that internal positioning games are more important for the DK than defeating the government at the next parliamentary elections.

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