Ibolya David, leader of the conservative opposition Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF), was re-elected overwhelmingly in a show of hands at the party’s national meeting on Saturday, MDF Spokesperson Szabolcs Kerek-Barczy told MTI.
Of the 378 eligible voters, 274 delegates participated in the vote. Altogether 182 delegates voted for David and 72 against with 20 abstentions.
“This vote of confidence was a gesture rather than a legal obligation. The party’s leadership wished to survey if the rank and file backed the policy which yielded success for MDF in the European parliamentary election,” the spokesman said.
In the June 7 EP elections MDF gained one mandate with 5.3 percent of votes, just clearing the 5 percent entry threshold and faring fairly better than suggested by pre-election polls.
The conservative party will be represented in the European Union’s legislative arm by Lajos Bokros, a liberal pro-reform economist who held the finance portfolio in Gyula Horn’s socialist-led government in the 1990s.
After the vote, dozens of delegates left the meeting in protest against what they called the controversial circumstances of the vote. Some of them would have preferred a secret ballet and complained that the number of “yes” votes was not counted at all and several delegates did not know what they were voting about.
What is this with Hungarians obsession to have a “secret ballet” as soon a person is to be elected?
These persons voting are not you and me. They are representatives for other members in their party and as representatives, they do not want to show the people who voted for them how they really vote?
I have a hard time understanding why elected people should even have the chance to hide their voting record. Of course the people who chose them should be able to check them. Or is this something that developed deep in the Hungarian history that the rest of us Europeans never be able to understand?
Like it is easier to be corrupt if you can hide your voting record.
Ballet is an art form. There was a Hungarian Ballet Institute right accross from the Opera on Andrassy ut. Lots of pretty girls there…
The building then became victim of the usual corrupt real-estate “privatization”, sold for peanuts.
I miss the good old days. I’d rather see pretty girls than lowlife “investors” in Hungary.
Godot,
Funny, but I think you have to take that with MTI that wrote the stuff. That was why you had the “”.
No opinion on why you Hungarians are spineless and do not stand up for your opinion and instead like to hide behind secret voting?
Viking says: “No opinion on why you Hungarians are spineless and do not stand up for your opinion and instead like to hide behind secret voting?”
Your mama is spineless. And so are the members of MDF, SZDSZ and MSZP, etc. to list a few.
MDF members are used to the special treatment they get if the oppose the David regime, so they rather raise their hands to show their support than risk getting kicked out. When the voting is anonymous, the results are different, Ibolya doesn’t want that. This is one of the many reason why members of any parties should be banned from public office. This includes ALL parties. People should pick their own reps and vote for individuals not stinking, corrupt parties. That would be a step in the right direction.
Godot,
Still would not solve the problem that elected politicians, regardless if they were voted in as individuals or on a party list, in any type of Parliament should be able to hide behind secret voting.
The people who elected them cannot really check their voting record.
No secret voting, the people are entitled to see what their reps are up to. This is essential.
Corruption, intrigue, and clandestine activity in
every nook and cranny of Hungarian political life.
Contrived secret ballots,party members who are no more than puppets, leaders who remain so by manipulative measures, and every form of corruption, bribery, maladministration and third rate performance that you can think of is the bonfire of intrigue upon which Hungarian dreams have gone up in flames.