Hungary Presidential Election: Polls show current Prime Minister will likely win a third term
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Turning to Hungary now, and citizens there will vote for a new parliament on Sunday. Polls show the current Prime Minister will likely win a third term, taking credit for eight years of economic growth. But critics say his government is autocratic and xenophobic. Aljosa Milenkovic reports from Budapest.
It is this man that came into focal point of this year's elections in Hungary. Georg Soros, American stocks speculator and business magnate of Hungarian origins, seen here at the billboard with the rest of the opposition leaders and with lines saying: "They want to destroy the fence together." "Referring to the fence erected back in 2015 along the border with Serbia, which aim was to stop the flow of illegal migrants and refugees into Hungary. A move very much opposed by many opposition parties and NGOs ever since. Egyutt is one of those parties, founded just recently with the strong anti-Orban agenda. They've held their final pre-election rally in the Budapest's workers suburb Csepel, hoping to attract those dissatisfied with the government policies, including its position on Soros.
KRISZTINA BARANYI OPPOSITION CANDIDATE "It is a very funny thing that the government has made an 87-year-old man, who is indeed very rich, to be their biggest enemy. It is pure propаganda. Аnd on top of that, Soros has financed the education of people like the current prime minister, who studied at Oxford, with the hope that those people will lead this country into the future, a country that wants open societies and to live freely."
In the Budapest downtown, ruling coalition did it's campaigning, with providing elderly citizens basic computer training. And again in the interview, they had to stake their own arguments that it is actually Soros who wants to meddle into their business and not the vice versa.
ISTVAN HOLLIK MP, RULING FIDESZ-KDNP COALITION "It is not our claim that George Soros and his organizations are working against the Fidesz-KDNP government. The latest example of this claim is last week's audio leak where the former CEO of Soros Fund, Tracie Ahern, says the George Soros Open Society Foundation serves nothing but Soros' political goals. Moreover, she says more than 2,000 people in Hungary are working to defeat the Fidesz-KDNP government."
ALJOSA MILENKOVIC BUDAPEST "It is political sticks and stones that parties throw at each other in this election campaign. Mutual accusations of corruption, autocracy or collusion with the foreign funded NGO's became a part of a daily life here in Hungary. But yet none of the above prevents Hungary becoming GDP growth leader in the EU bloc."
And it is exactly that economic growth that no one can deny and that keeps ruling coalition firmly in power for the last 8 years.
ZOLTAN KOVACS, SPOKESMAN GOVERNMENT OF HUNGARY "Indeed we inherited a country at the brink of collapse back in 2010, with a very high 11.4% unemployment rate, 85% sovereign debt, and minus 6.5 economic growth. Today we stand at an unemployment level of 3.8%, sovereign debt has come down to 73 percent, and economic growth is up to 4, 4.5%."
Hungary aims to boost its trade particularly with the East and also to invest heavily into tourism expansion. Something that any opposition that plans to topple the current government will have difficulties to outmatch. Aljosa Milenkovic, CGTN, Budapest.