Reactions to the opposition primary from the pro-Fidesz camp
October 20th, 2021Critics of the opposition ruminate on what the government side should do after Péter Márki-Zay, an outsider, managed to defeat opposition party leaders and become Prime Minister Orbán’s challenger in next April’s parliamentary elections.
On Mandiner, Mátyás Kohán attributes Márki Zay’s victory over DK candidate Klára Dobrev to the ballots of a new group of voters who wanted to deny DK leader Ferenc Gyurcsány the chance to take hold of the reins of the opposition. Many of them must once have voted for Fidesz, he surmises, but have withdrawn from politics over the past few years. The outcome of next year’s elections, Kohán suggests, will depend on precisely such “intelligent” people, as opposed to the fanatic supporters of either camp. To convince them, he believes, negative campaigns like the one currently urging citizens to “stop Gyurcsány” will not do. A programme, a positive vision of the future will be indispensable, Kohán concludes.
In Magyar Nemzet, Tamás Pilhál sees Péter Márki-Zay, the self-defined conservative and practising Christian prime ministerial candidate as the Left’s Trojan horse. His role, the pro-government columnist suggests, is to lure conservative-minded voters onto the other side of the political divide. Hidden within the hollow wooden horse, he continues his parable, Gyurcsány and his fighters are waiting for their opponents to lower their guard. Pilhál calls on conservatives not to allow patriotic, right-wing citizens to be duped by the Trojan horse ruse and not to bring the wooden horse within the precincts of their fortress. In his final remark, he calls on his fellow conservatives to “topple the Trojan horse”.