A leading pro-government columnist urges the ruling party to admit its guilt in breaking campaign rules during the Baja local by-election, as nothing is more important for a party than being trustworthy. READ MORE
Analysts struggle to account for the gap between opinion polls and the results of local by-elections. They all agree that undecided voters without clear preferences or who are unwilling to share their views with pollsters, will have a major role in the 2014 election and thus parties will spare no effort to mobilize them. READ MORE
A Transylvanian columnist questions the wisdom of pushing too hard for Szekler autonomy as this could harm other minority Hungarians in Romania. READ MORE
A pro-government pundit thinks left-wing opinion leaders don’t understand how politics works when they urge competing left-wing leaders to agree on how to share power and candidates for next year’s elections. READ MORE
Analysts across the political spectrum ponder the possible implications of the National Bank’s extended lending program, which aims to stimulate economic growth. READ MORE
A liberal commentator argues that the Socialists, after coming to an agreement with Gordon Bajnai, are much less eager to grant Gyurcsány the positions he has asked for, while a conservative columnist points out that even if opposition forces come to an agreement regarding their candidate for PM, they still have no political programme for the voters. An independent centrist analyst says that despite naive hopes to the contrary, new faces are unlikely to emerge on the Hungarian political scene in the near future and the political elite is here to stay. READ MORE
A pro-government weekly finds the criticism directed at the new school reforms hasty and harsh, while another commentator acknowledges teachers’ need for higher salaries but says liberal critics misrepresent the reforms and foster hysteria. READ MORE
A centrist commentator notes that PM Orbán is surprisingly unaware of how awful the lavish support his government has provided to Felcsút – his hometown – looks to most citizens, while a left-wing analyst says Bajnai’s problem is his lack of political awareness. READ MORE
A left-wing analyst says the protagonists of last week’s angry exchanges all need the conflict to boost their own political plans, but transborder Hungarians in Romania are the ones who will suffer. A liberal columnist, on the other hand, criticizes MSZP leader Attila Mesterházy for reacting to Băsescu’s statement with outrage instead of regarding it as a criticism aimed at PM Orbán. A centre-right columnist from Romania finds it strange that other transborder Hungarians, such as the Hungarians of Slovakia, are much less concerned with their own minority status than Hungarians in Transylvania. READ MORE
Heti Válasz argues that Hungary is actually not losing money by financing her deficit from the market, rather than from the IMF credit line. READ MORE