Instead of improvements, the leaders of the capital make motorists the scapegoat.
The pursuit of motorists by the capital's leaders is being determined in Budapest, Deputy Mayor Gábor Kerpel-Fronius, for example, talked about the possibility of introducing a congestion charge in ATV. With all this, they are trying to hide the lack of comprehensive urban development, analyst Levente Boros Bánk told our newspaper.
The capital's leaders are conducting a carefully prepared communication against the drivers of Budapest, in addition to the mayor Gergely Karácsony, three of his deputies have spoken out against the drivers in recent days. Kata Tüttő and Anett Bősz also talked about the need to reduce car traffic and for everyone to use less energy at home. All of this is in line with the Brussels initiative, to which, according to the Karácsony's announcement, Budapest will also join. Gábor Kerpel-Fronius warmed up to the congestion charge already introduced during the time of Gábor Demszky, admitting that there is a legal obstacle to this as long as the left is not in power.
"I see the helplessness in these ideas - Levente Boros Bánk, director of analysis at the Nézőpont Institute, commented to our newspaper on the latest statement, adding: two and a half years were not enough for them to determine the direction, at least for themselves, and create a strategy, or at least their short-term ideas be about how to run this city.”
"Possible ideation is taking place. Every single measure that the capital created in these two years and a half fits into this line. It looks like someone who gets up in the morning and wants to quickly realize what he dreamed of at night. You can't see the well-thought-out urban development planning, the political vision in the decisions and speeches. Anyone who hears an interesting idea tries to interpret it in Budapest. All this also shows that the city is not led, and the various actors are not coordinated, there is no actual cooperation between the parties in the capital's leadership - said Levente Boros Bánk."
Due to the lack of independent new ideas, they are constantly adopting plans from elsewhere, mostly following the path of Brussels, which, according to the political scientist, is also a comfortable state, since you don't have to plan or think, you just have to join something.
"In Hungary, there are no models that they have created themselves, they have no experience, they have no prepared politicians, there are no well-led opposition cities that could serve as models, so as usual they try to adopt models from abroad - continued the analyst, who emphasized that the main problem is leadership lack of it, because the mayor is not helped by his deputies, commissioned specialists, parties and factions behind him, but rather works the other way around, the actual power balance of the parties determines who has a say in the capital."
Christmas is not its own master, never was and never will be. The last two and a half years have proven that he is a lame duck in the political sense.
When you need to negotiate, you don't have to negotiate with him, and if he sits down to negotiate with someone, it won't guarantee anything, because the implementation depends on people and institutions outside of him. On party members who were not chosen by him, such as his deputies, whom he got ready after their party talks.
The analyst reminded: this happened last time as well, two parties agreed on who would be one of Gergely Karácsony's deputies. All this clearly shows that it is not city management, but political division and positioning. That is why you cannot look for professionalism in the management of the capital. Managers are chosen on a non-professional basis, and by definition they make non-professional decisions. If we ask the question of what has happened in Budapest since Karácsony took office, it is very difficult to find a decision beyond dispute.
Nothing happened that would have meaningfully moved the life of the city forward.
There is nothing else but the painting of bike lanes, the stopping of city park developments, political squabbles, growing mountains of garbage and constant complaining that there is no money. Let's say that the most that they managed to create, which helps the everyday life of the people living in the capital, is probably the mobile application of BudapestGO, i.e. BKK, which is a programming task - assessed Levente Boros Bánk.
Featured image: MTI/Szilárd Koszticsák
