The Hungarian party called Szövetsé achieved a historic success in the local and county elections in Slovakia on Saturday, the State Secretary of the Prime Minister's Office responsible for national policy announced on Wednesday in Budapest.

Árpád János Potápi stated at the press conference evaluating the results of the vote - referring to the fact that Hungarian parties united a year ago - "the preliminary work has borne fruit".

The Alliance has become a prominent party in the southern Slovakian region, and they must be reckoned with "very strongly" in national politics as well.

The current results create the possibility that the Hungarians in Slovakia will have a very strong parliamentary representation, he added.

He justified the necessity of the unification by saying that, although the number of Hungarians in Slovakia is 8.5 percent, in the last election no ethnic Hungarian party entered the Slovak legislature either partially or entirely.

János Árpád Potápi explained: the Association has significantly increased the number of county representative seats, it will have 54 representatives in five southern counties, which is 12 more than before. The ruling party politician called it a good result

In 6,010 constituencies, 1.951 million people out of 4.461 million eligible voters participated in the vote on Sunday.

"Much better than five years ago," he indicated, and then mentioned as an example that József Berényi finished in second place in Nagyszombat County, doubling his result in the previous voting. Tibor Csenger achieved a particularly good personal result in Nyitra County, where he took third place, he added.

The state secretary also mentioned that the Association won 263 mayoral positions, of which 222 municipalities won independently, and in another 41 municipalities will be governed in a coalition, which is "an enormous result".

Krisztián Forró, the president of the Association, said that the result exceeded all expectations and preliminary assessments. "Slovak media and politicians don't really know what to do with this result, they can neither spit it out nor swallow it," he said, and then emphasized that

the results showed the strength of the party and the Hungarian community. Currently, the Association has the largest number of county representatives in Slovakia who were elected in the colors of one party, he pointed out.

Krisztián Forró stated that "we not only kept our bastions, but also strengthened them", and then indicated that far more people voted for the County President candidate of the Association in Nagyszombat and Nyitra counties than the number of Hungarians.

Among other things, he justified the importance of unified Hungarian representation in the Slovak legislature by the fact that the road and railway developments in the Hungarian-inhabited southern regions were lagging behind, which, he declared, was unacceptable.

He added: Southern and Eastern Slovakia were treated as stepchildren by the central government.

Krisztián Forró responded to the moderator's suggestion as to whether an early election is expected in Slovakia: he considers an election held before 2024 less and less likely if the 2023 budget plan is adopted.

At the same time, he argued for an early election, saying "the country will go further and further down the slope", which favors extremist parties. "The longer we drag out this agony, the worse the political life can get," he said.

Source: Felvidék.ma

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