Hungary – As the weeks go by, Péter Márki-Zay, the united opposition‘s candidate for the post of prime minister in the upcoming 3 April parliamentary elections, is making more and more blunders.
These blunders have piled up and the gap in the polls is widening
The mayor of Hódmezővásárhely, Péter Márki-Zay, who won the opposition’s primary last autumn, has been making so many misstatements that his own camp is increasingly worried and seems to be discreetly disassociating itself from him. Last Saturday Márki-Zay spoke in Fonyód, a town on Lake Balaton’s southern shore, where he attended a meeting to support MP Ádám Steinmetz, a former Olympic water polo champion and a local Jobbik candidate backed by Márki-Zay’s Hungary for All movement. Having previously sparked fury by declaring that a number of Fidesz members are Jewish or homosexual, Márki-Zay stated:
“What Viktor Orbán embodies in his person, this rainbow coalition – namely, liberals, communists, conservatives, and fascists –, we represent them separately in the alliance” of the opposition, where “everyone can keep his own vision of the world”.
Even the journalists of a media outlet overtly supporting Márki-Zay such as 444.hu were left flabbergasted and wondering whether the common opposition candidate “really thinks that he represents the fascists in the Unity for Hungary [coalition]” and which party he thinks represents these “fascists” within the united opposition.
The opposition candidate then published a post on Facebook to explain that the communists and fascists are in Viktor Orbán’s ranks, and that he was referring to the small, traditional left-wing alliance (the Munkáspárt communist party that is allied with the radical left-wing party ISZOMM) and the nationalist party Mi Hazánk, which he presents as Orbán’s satellites.
Fidesz has been ahead in all polls since mid-December, and since the end of January, its lead has been widening. The latest survey, conducted by Real-PR 93 between 9 and 11 February on a representative sample of 1,000 people who are certain of how they will vote, puts Fidesz at 54% of voting intentions and the united opposition at 41%.
