Liberal pundit fears for Bajnai

Galamus fears Gordon Bajnai is losing his chance to become PM Orbán’s challenger at next year’s elections.

In Galamus, founding editor Zsófia Mihancsik confesses that she would like Gordon Bajnai to become the next Prime Minister, with Ferenc Gyurcsány in charge of public relations, but worries that her candidate is underperforming for the moment. On the one hand, she feels Mr Bajnai has let himself be bullied by MSZP Chairman Attila Mesterházy into the position of a reluctant partner. Mr Mesterházy keeps bombarding Bajnai with initiatives for early negotiations, for which Bajnai is not yet ready. In fact, Mihancsik continues, although he has a narrow lead over Mesterházy in the polls, he does not have either a team of politicians or a sizeable organisation behind him. Why then should the Socialists accept him as their candidate for the post of Prime Minister? she asks.  The liberal commentator also suspects that the Socialist Party may have resigned itself to losing next year’s election and might be aiming at winning in 2018, but without embarrassing rivals. Mihancsik believes Bajnai is wrong to continue to dissociate himself from Ferenc Gyurcsány and his DK party. They would contribute more votes than the number of voters they would scare away, she believes. If Bajnai thinks he can win over right-wing voters who are disappointed by the government, Mihancsik argues, he is mistaken, for they would not vote for him any more than for Gyurcsány.  All in all, she suggests, Bajnai would have quite a lot to gain from being more resolute and open in representing his own political priorities in public.

Tags: Bajnai, Gyurcsány, Mesterházy, Orbán