SZDSZ crisis deepens as further voting irregularities emerge

Hungary’s current political turmoil could be further complicated after details emerged of the scale of irregularities in the SZDSZ leadership ballot held last year. The registry revealed that there were 26 more votes cast than voters present, reports index.hu. János Kóka won the election by 13 votes.

According to the official results announced on 31 March 2007, of the 749 votes cast, Gábor Fodor received 367 votes, János Kóka received 380 and two were invalid. The voting registry shows that only 723 party members attended the election.

A board comprising party members printed the ballot sheets and emptied the urns after the election. Chairman of the vote counting committee Balázs Poczkodi says that they completed their task as instructed and could have no idea about what had happened. On the other hand, the press was sent out of the voting room when the election began. This is unprecedented before an SZDSZ election.

The scandal blew up when HírTV revealed that certain delegates from Borsod county whose signatures were found on the registry did not participate in the ballot. Those who voted in their name said they were ordered to vote for Kóka by the Borsod county SZDSZ leader. The party initially denied this, but ordered an investigation, performed by Csaba Jüttner, SZDSZ chairman in Szabolcs county, after the registry was eventually found.

The investigation only concluded that the votes cast in the name of the four deputies did not effect the final results because Kóka received 13 more votes than Fodor. However, it has since been discovered that there were at least four similar cases among the deputies from Szabolcs county as well.

Kóka, who continues to lead the Liberal Democrats and recently announced the withdrawal of the party from the coalition government, has called a deputy meeting which may result in a major replacement of officers.

According to Privátbankár, a second leadership is expected to be held in early June. By that time, the coalition is highly likely to have disbanded, leaving SZDSZ as a minority party.