Nine months ahead of the EU elections it became clear that Hungarian leftist opposition parties will not have a joint candidate list after former Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány’s party announced it will go it alone.
The announcement was made by Zsolt Gréczy, MP for the Democratic Coalition (DK) a party formed by Ferenc Gyurcsány from a splinter group of former Socialists, Magyar Idők reports.
Gréczy said they decided to have their own list because at the EU parliamentary elections voters can only choose between party lists – as opposed to individual candidates – and separate lists for opposition parties have the potential to yield more seats in the European Parliament.
Regarding DK’s expectations, he said the party is aiming to have at least the number of seats it won at the last election. In 2014, DK won two seats of the 21 available for Hungary.
Meanwhile, the Socialists remain divided over the issue of a joint candidate list with Párbeszéd (Dialogue for Hungary), mainly because at this year’s Hungarian parliamentary elections in April, Párbeszéd could only pass the threshold due to a coalition with the Socialists. This resulted in three seats for them, while the Socialists only got 16 against the 28 they won in 2014.
Socialist Party president Bertalan Tóth has consistently said that the two parties should have a joint list.
The majority view among Hungarian analysts is that at next year’s EU elections the ruling Fidesz-Hungarian Civic Union could increase the number of its MEPs by one or two from the current 12.
