The Hungarian Democratic Charter, a civic movement, did not expect the abolition of the preparations for the show trial against former prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsány when it requested András Schiffer, leader of Politics Can Be Different Party (LMP) to withdraw his claim against the former prime minister. It only wanted to provide him with an opportunity to perform a political gesture provided he has already realised what is going on based on his accusation. The initiative was successful: we can see clearer now. Schiffer in turn can vote to lift Gyurcsány’s immunity assuming its national and international political consequences.
Schiffer’s answer was not unexpected but only made him fall into discredit. The formula he used in his reply – the Charta is ’not in the position’– is the same what Péter Szíjjártó, the current prime minister’s spokesman uses when someone dares to criticise the current development of dictatorship in Hungary. Schiffer’s and Szíjjártó’s pride stems from the same origin. Maybe the reason lays in the last minute boom when LMP was collecting voting recommendation slips. (The party only managed to collect enough signatures in the last moment to field a city-wide mayoral candidate in Budapest, in the party’s stronghold. It is still not clear whether they ‘received’ them from an outer source).
Zsolt Gréczy, Gréczyblog, August 15. 2011.