Twin-tailed Dog party survives its first crisis

Although the party’s two leaders have now withdrawn their resignations, commentators see the crisis of the past days as signalling the end of the ’fun party’ as we have known it – one making fun of both the government and the opposition.

The co-chairpersons, Gergely Kovács and Zsuzsanna Döme resigned on Sunday after the party assembly was evenly split on Kovács’s plan to run in the opposition primary to choose the candidate for Mayor of the 12^th district of Budapest. A repeated vote gave him overwhelming support on Monday, as a result of which the two leaders withdrew their resignations.

On Mérce, Noémi Lehoczki suggests that ’the Dogs’ as they are called by the man in the street do not basically differ from LMP and Momentum, both of whom are also perceived by the public as critical of both sides of the political divide. She therefore believes that it would make sense for them to run in alliance to be successful in Hungary’s largely majoritarian electoral system. More importantly, she thinks they should offer a consistent and positive programme to the electorate.

On Mandiner, Dániel Kacsoh concedes that ’the Dogs’ have often been ’moderately witty’ over the past years but now, with about 6 percent support in the polls, they must become more serious. Two prominent figures they have recruited as candidates for the forthcoming elections, Kacsóh writes, are markedly liberal and very serious people – and so is Kovács’s decision to run for the post of district Mayor. Kacsoh predicts that as a result, ’the Dogs’ will subordinate themselves to a bigger party and ’get a new collar’.

Tags: Twin-Tailed Dog