As probably everyone knows already, the Hungarian round of the European Parliamentary elections will be held on May 25, Sunday. Hungary can delegate 21 MEPs to the Parliament. If you are an EU national and you desperately want to participate in the EP elections, but you have no idea about who you could vote on in Hungary, then this brief summary of the Hungarian political parties will hopefully help you to decide. The programs of the five largest Hungarian parties has already been introduced in Issue 42 of The CEU Weekly in February, therefore, this article focuses on candidates and key figures who run at the upcoming elections.FIDESZ-KDNP
The recently re-elected governing party has 21 candidates on its EP list. The first person on the list is Dr. Ildikó Pelczné GÁLL, university professor, former Hungarian MP and current MEP. She holds a PhD. from economics. Another prominent figure on the list is Kinga GÁL, who has been elected as MEP of the Year twice, in 2008 and in 2014 in the European Parliament. She is an expert of minority rights issues. George SCHÖPFLIN (or György Schöpflin) is the seventh candidate on the list. He was a child when his parents left Hungary in the 1940s and moved to the UK. He is an expert of Central European politics, and was teaching at UCL’s Eastern European and Slavonic Studies Institute from 1976 to 2004. Fidesz has three Hungarian candidates who come from neighboring countries, thus representing ethnic Hungarians at the elections, as well. MSZP (Hungarian Socialist Party)
The socialists published the profile of 10 candidates on their website. Tibor SZANYI is the first person on the list, who had several positions during his lifetime. He represented Hungary at FAO’s office in Rome for 3 years, then he was appointed State Officer for agricultural and economic affairs during MSZP’s 8 years of government. Zita GURMAI is one of the two women candidates on the list. She has been elected MEP at the 2009 elections as well. Since then, she holds different positions in the EP, such as member of the Constitutional and the Women Rights Committee.Jobbik – Movement for Hungary
The most famous (or infamous) candidate on Jobbik’s list is Krisztina MORVAI, a very controversial figure, from a personal viewpoint. Originally, she is a human rights jurist, defender of women’s rights and promoter of the criminalization of domestic violence. She is an associate professor at ELTE’s law school in Budapest, and gave lectures at CEU in gender rights topics too, at the beginning of the 2000s, before Jobbik was created. She represented Hungary in the UN’s CEDAW committee from 2002 to 2006. She has never joined Jobbik, but agreed to run at the EP elections in 2009 for the first time, as the party’s “external” candidate. She is heavily Euroskeptic and is against of selling Hungarian lands to foreign investors. LMP – Politics Can Be Different
The first two candidates of Hungary’s largest ecopolitical party are Tamás MESZERICS and Katalin CSIBA. The former holds the position of assistant professor at CEU’s Department of Political Science since 2002. He has a PhD. in modern international history. He was also teaching as visiting professor at the University of Leeds and as visiting scholar at Harvard University. The second candidate on LMP’s list, Katalin Csiba is a young biologist. She is committed to “green affairs”, such as the rehabilitation of natural habitats and sustainable development. More information on the candidates can be found here: http://budapestbeacon.com/politics/hungarian-ep-elections-politics-can-different-lmp/.Együtt - PM (Together – Discussion for Hungary)
The party coalition of Együtt – PM set up a common EP list for the elections. The first person on the list is Gordon BAJNAI, former prime minister of Hungary. He is an economist and one of the most prominent founding members of the 5-party coalition formed a month before the Hungarian Parliamentary elections. Benedek JÁVOR, former member of LMP is the second candidate. Originally, he is a biologist, and used to be a university lecturer at the law faculty of Pázmány Péter Catholic University in Budapest. Péter BALÁZS, the Director of CEU’s Center for EU Enlargement Studies and former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Hungary is also one of the party’s MEP candidates. More information on the party and its candidates can be found here: http://eastlandcup.blogspot.hu/2014/04/we-go-for-it-top-10-on-ep-list-of.htmlYou can register at the EP elections by May 9, Friday, if you have not done so yet. Information on how the registration goes is published on our blog: http://ceuweekly.blogspot.hu/2014/03/how-can-foreign-eu-citizens-vote-in.html
Eszter Kajtár,
School of Public Policy,
Hungary
Photo: http://digitaltradedaily.com/
0 comments:
Post a Comment