Hungary: Conservative Marki-Zay will represent the opposition against Orban in 2022
Conservative Peter Marki-Zay poses after the announcement of his victory in the Hungarian opposition primary on October 17, 2021, in Budapest.
© Bernadett Szabo, Reuters
Text by: RFI Follow
5 mins
49-year-old outsider Peter Marki-Zay won the opposition primary in Hungary this Sunday, October 17, according to partial results.
He will face outgoing Prime Minister Viktor Orban in the next legislative elections in 2022. It is the first time in the history of this central European country that the united opposition will present a single candidate.
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It is the outsider that we did not expect, underlines our correspondent in Budapest,
Florence La Bruyère
.
This practicing Catholic obtained about 58% of the vote, according to the primary electoral commission, while 60% of the ballots were counted.
"
We want a new, cleaner, honest Hungary, not just to replace Orban,
" he said in his victory speech, referring to the sovereignist in power since 2010. He praised the
unprecedented process of the primary
, which made it possible to select candidates from all over the country, "
capable of getting rid of the most corrupt system in the thousand-year-old history of Hungary
", in the legislative elections scheduled for next April.
Peter Marki-Zay's competitor, center-left pro-European lawyer Klara Dobrev, won 42% of the vote.
"
I support Marki-Zay now,
" she said, quickly admitting defeat.
The final results are to be announced later in the evening.
The primary was to nominate the candidate for the post of head of government if the opposition were to win a majority during the legislative elections, but also to the deputation in each of the constituencies.
10,000 euros campaign with no party behind him
For the first round
, five candidates were in the running and Peter Marki-Zay managed to get 20% of the vote.
This outsider, who has no political party behind him, led a discreet campaign, which spent only 10,000 euros, all financed from his own pocket, and supported by many volunteers.
Having presented himself as an anti-elite and anti-corruption candidate, this former voter of Fidesz, Viktor Orban's party, won thanks in particular to the votes of the youngest.
A former marketing director, he left the business world three years ago to become independent mayor of a small town that was a stronghold of Fidezs.
Since then, Peter Marki-Zay has been re-elected at the head of his municipality, by voters from the left and from the right.
Candidate "c
auchemar pour Viktor Orban
"
Peter Marki-Zay is a curator with seven children.
But unlike Viktor Orban, he is deeply European and calls himself liberal.
He lived for five years in the United States and Canada and says he no longer recognizes himself in the politics of the leader, accused of corruption and authoritarianism.
So many points that can complicate the game for Viktor Orban. Difficult for the party in power to attack a right-wing, independent and honest man. And if the opposition remains united by the next legislative elections, Peter Marki-Zay could attract the votes of the undecided and some Fidesz voters, and bring down the current government.
The victory of Peter Marki-Zay is "
a nightmare for Viktor Orban
", judge the analyst Robert Laszlo, quoted by AFP.
Unlike Klara Dobrev, he cannot be easily mocked by the Prime Minister as being a puppet of Ferenc Gyurcsany
[her husband and former Prime Minister]
.
He was the primary winner least desired by Fidesz and seems capable of attracting new voters who are still undecided.
"
The conservative candidate came in third after the first round of the primary, but benefited from the withdrawal of the liberal and environmentalist mayor of Budapest Gergely Karacsony (27%). The latter estimated that the opposition would have a better chance of winning the legislative elections against Viktor Orban if Klara Dobrev did not lead the coalition. She had yet won the
first round at the end of September
with 35% of the vote.
If
Klara Dobrev had as an asset her experience in the European Parliament
, of which she is vice-president, the fact that she is the wife of the former Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany was for her a handicap, according to the polls.
The latter is very unpopular since the leak of private conversations in which he admitted to having lied about the real state of the country's economy: this member state of the European Union came close to bankruptcy in 2008.
"
Legitimacy
" with 10% of the Hungarian electorate mobilized
The organizers of the primary called it "
incredible success
".
Indeed, it mobilized more than 800,000 voters during the two rounds, or nearly 10% of the electorate of this country of 9.8 million inhabitants.
"
That's a lot of people,
" said to AFP during the counting Marta V. Naszalyi, mayor environmentalist of the first district of Budapest.
"
This gives legitimacy, the opposition will have a chance to change the government,
" she added.
After years of quarrels and a series of defeats, this is the first time that the opposition has decided to present a common front.
A marriage of convenience, carried by promising municipal authorities in 2019 and favorable polls.
Liberal, environmentalist, social democrat or from the extreme right, the formations represented in Parliament signed a joint declaration, in which they accuse Viktor Orban of having cut to his advantage the electoral law to prevent alternation and are committed on a government program.
►
See also: Hungary: home stretch of the opposition primary against a background of "Everything but Orban"
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