If someone were to ask who they would want to win the US presidential election in November, nine out of 10 editors in the world would say Donald Trump. Wow, those four years with the real estate magnate/reality TV star being the leader of the free world surely wouldn’t be boring. Fortunately for Hungarian editors we don’t really need Trump because we have the opposition Democratic Coalition and its head, former prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsány. We are in luck, because these guys always have something newsworthy up their sleeve. And it’s usually hilarious. Like last week when the Democratic Coalition (DK) called on counter-terrorism force TEK not to hassle anyone “because of their political leaning” during the March 15 national holiday marking the outbreak of the 1848 revolution. According to DK deputy leader Ágnes Vadai, the government wanted to use TEK to harass “the many opposing a reigning few”. Nothing wrong with that, right? A concerned politician worrying about the safety of her peeps. Let’s put the statement in context though. For that we have to go back to October 23, 2006. (October 23 is another of three major national holidays – note). The prime minister at the time was Gyurcsány, who is now the head of DK. We were a few weeks after the leaking of the infamous “Őszöd Speech” in which he basically admitted to lying to win the 2006 election. The speech prompted massive protests that culminated in the events of October 23 when mounted police, tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannons were used to force back the protesting crowd. Rubber bullets were frequently aimed head-high, causing a large number of injuries; a man lost the sight of one eye due to a rubber bullet. So it’s kind of funny when anybody from DK is worrying about the safety of citizens, especially as in the past six years since Fidesz took power nothing even remotely similar has happened. On Tuesday tens of thousands took to the street to protest the education policy of the Orbán government and once again everybody went home with the sight of both eyes.
-
Display
