According to Mayor Sára Botond's office, running the city without a deputy mayor is not only illegal, but also dangerous.
The fact that there is still no general deputy mayor is not only against the law, but may also endanger the legal and smooth functioning of the capital city government, wrote the Budapest Capital Government Office in response to Magyar Nemzet's question. The organization highlighted
in the case of permanent obstruction of the mayor for any reason, there is no one to make the everyday decisions essential to the operation of the city in his stead, or to take meaningful measures.
According to the government office, in order to ensure the legal operation of the capital, a notice of legality was issued on November 11, 2024 due to the failure to nominate and elect the deputy mayor. In it, they called on the mayor and the assembly to restore the legal operation and to elect the deputy mayor.
If the 30-day deadline provided in the notice to eliminate the unlawful situation passes without result, the government office may decide to apply an additional legality monitoring tool
- wrote the government office. As the next step, if the illegal situation is not eliminated, the government office will appoint a deputy mayor from among the members of the Metropolitan Assembly.
Gergely Karácsony previously highlighted the absence of the deputy mayor, in his opinion
the rule of law in Hungary has suffered thousands more than the fact that the deputy mayor was not elected.
"Let's continue to do our work. I'll wait until occupational therapy gives the parties a little more insight and maybe they realize that here's a city they're responsible for. If not, then the mayor will send someone to me as deputy mayor. If this is okay according to the parliamentary factions, then the boss's man will get an office on the fourth floor, plus a coffee machine, but no powers," he said.
In other words, the mayor apparently does not consider the election of the deputy mayor to be important at all.
This is clearly demonstrated by the fact that the Metropolitan Assembly withdrew the proposal on deputy mayors at the beginning of the session, following the proposal of Richárd Barabás. Thus, the capital will still not have a deputy mayor.
In any case, there was extremely little chance of voting for the position, as Tisza Party faction leader Eszter Ordas announced that the Budapest faction of Tisza will not vote on Gergely Karácsony's deputy until the mayor presents their text message amendment proposal in the general assembly.
Cover image source: Mediaworks
