Chances of left-wing cooperation

According to a left-wing and a liberal pundit, left-wing opposition parties can defeat Fidesz in the autumn Budapest municipal elections. A pro-government commentator suspects that even existing cooperation agreements will have to be renegotiated by the two strongest opposition parties.

Népszava’s Judit Kósa interprets the results of the European Parliamentary election as evidence that the opposition parties could defeat Fidesz in the Hungarian capital in the autumn municipal election. The left-wing columnist recalls that in Budapest, opposition parties combined received more votes than Fidesz. To use the opportunity, the opposition needs to agree on credible joint candidates in Budapest, and also present a clear idea of their plans concerning the future of the capital, Kósa concludes.

On Index, Tamás Fábián also thinks that the left-wing opposition parties can win in Budapest. The liberal pundit points out that although in Sunday’s EP election, Fidesz got more votes in Budapest than in the 2018 Parliamentary election, support for the three main left-wing opposition parties grew even faster. As a result, the Democratic Coalition, Momentum and the MSZP stand a chance of jointly defeating Fidesz, even if the LMP declines to join their alliance, Fábián notes.

In Magyar Hírlap, Dóra Nagy suspects that the election has rewritten the power balance between the opposition parties. The pro-government columnist thinks that the surge of the Democratic Coalition and Momentum is the result of the decision of former Socialist and LMP voters to vote for more energetic left-wing parties. Thus, she concludes, the opposition parties were once again competing for the same voting base rather than addressing new voters. Furthermore, she suggests, the Democratic Coalition and Momentum will want to renegotiate earlier cooperation deals on joint candidates at the autumn local election, since those agreements were based on the assumption that the MSZP was the strongest among them.

Tags: Budapest, Democratic Coalition, EP election, European Parliament, Fidesz, Momentum