Tomorrow, September 11, new interim local government elections will be held. In addition to three smaller settlements, a new municipal representative is also being elected in the 1st district of Budapest. The stake in the interim is whether mayor Márta V. Naszályi will be able to regain his left-wing majority in the local representative body.

In Borszörcsök in Veszprém County, a new mayor and representative body will be elected on Sunday due to dissolution, in Faddon in Tolna County, a new settlement leader must be elected due to resignation, and in Békés County, Medgyesbodzás, an interim mayor election had to be called due to a death. In the 1st district of Budapest, a by-election is also held due to a resignation in the municipal individual electoral district No. 5, because in 2019 the president of the local Momentum, Ferenc Gelencsér, was elected as a representative. At that time, eight out of ten districts were won by the united left, and the mayor's seat was won in a close contest, with a margin of 121 votes, by the dialogical Márta V. Naszályi, who was also supported by all left-wing parties. The resulting line-up in the representative body reflected a clear 10-5 left-wing superiority.

Despite this, in three years, the air around the pro-Christmas mayor completely ran out. Gergely Kristóf Gulyás, a local Fidesz municipal representative, previously told our newspaper that, like many other municipalities led by the left, unity is fragmented in the 1st district, and it is not without precedent that the momentous ones, the former right-wing ones, but sometimes even the DK representative also voted out of the alliance.

The division of the left became more public for the first time when the mayor wanted to support the Átrium private theater with the name of Róbert Alföldi with HUF 35 million. By this time, Ferenc Gelencsér had already resigned from the representative office, since he entered the parliament on April 3 from the Gyurcsány list. And the left-wing theater was not supported by the two self-proclaimed right-wing representatives sitting on the board, who left Jobbik earlier and are currently politicizing in the colors of the Polgári Válasz party. As a result of the resulting 7-7 deadlock, V. Naszályi backed down and ultimately did not submit the statement supporting Átrium at the last board meeting before the summer break.

The full article of Magyar Nemzet can be read here.

Author: Márk Kreft-Horváth

Image: Facebook