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Central Europe
September 22, 2017 www.intellinews.com I Page 12
Fidesz approves anti-graft legislation to avert referendum
bne IntelliNews
Hungary's parliament unanimously approved leg- islation on September 19 submitted by opposition party Jobbik on extending the statute of limita- tions for corruption-related crimes to 12 years. Fidesz MP's backed the legislation after opposi- tion parties began a campaign to collect signa- tures for a referendum.
Political scientists were quick to point out the similarity to Fidesz backing the amendment to force a sudden reversal on their Sunday shop- ping ban. Parliament abolished the law in April 2016 only a week after after the opposition Social- ists got the go ahead to press on with a referen- dum effort, which the ruling Fidesz party clearly feared could hurt its support.
On a similar note, the government ditched its Olympic bid in February only to avert a vote in a referendum after a small political movement Mo- mentum, which later became a registered party, collected the signatures of more than 260,000 Budapest residents in support of a referendum
in a matter of weeks.
Opposition parties look set to focus their election campaign message on the rampant corruption in
the country. In the latest Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) released by Transparency International in January, Hungary dropped seven places to
57th out of the 176 countries, examined, joining the ranks of the worst performers in the EU alongside Bulgaria, Greece, Italy and Romania.
In a report released on April 4, Freedom House ranked Hungary as the least democratic country in Central Europe, according to the NGO.
The referendum drive was initiated by former LMP lawmaker Gabor Vago – secretary of the Anti-Cor- ruption Alliance. He drew support from all opposi- tion parties, who claim that Prosecutor General Peter Polt is closing his eyes to Fidesz corruption scandals as charges were pressed only in a few cases since 2010.
After Fidesz's announcement to support the ini- tiative, Momentum announced they were launch- ing another referendum question to recall Peter Polt from his post. Legal analysts say that that the question will likely fail the constitutional test.