Hunvald elected local MSZP Chairman

A former district mayor who is on trial for corruption has been elected chairman of the Socialist Party organisation in the neighbouring district. Commentators wonder if this is what the Socialist Party means by renewal.

Mr Hunvald was sentenced to 18 months in jail for financial malpractices during his term from 2002 to 2010. His sentence was annulled by the Kúria, which ruled that the case should be combined with other indictments against the defendant.

On Válasz, Heti Válasz’s website, István Dévényi sarcastically congratulates the MSZP on opting for a celebrity to head their organisation in the 7^th district of the capital. He asks if it was really impossible to find a politician in the district whose name is not synonymous with corruption for 9 out of 10 Hungarians.

On Kettős Mérce, veteran left-wing journaist László Bernáth is outraged. Under Hunvald as 6^th district mayor, he writes, well-placed people ‘from liberals to Fidesz men’ enjoyed illegal favourable treatment by the local council. Earlier, he recalls, Mr Hunvald stepped down from his party posts and said he would never run again. ’But the tides have been changing in the MSZP top leadership’, Bernáth bitterly remarks, adding a link to a previous Kettős Mérce article which criticised the MSZP for electing former 11^th  district Mayor Gyula Molnár as the party’s national Chairman. Mr Molnár was also accused and convicted for corruption, but has since been cleared of the charges.

Tags: MSZP