One hundred thousand people wait for Szél and Hadházy in front of public television

On Thursday afternoon, in front of the Prime Minister’s office at the Carmelite Monastery, Bernadett Szél and Ákos Hadházy, independent representatives, reported on the success of the collection of the files from the last national consultation. The former co-chairs of the LMP announced in early June that they would collect the files from a national consultation on the treatment of the coronavirus sent by the government to all. You can give them blank sheets without filling in. The action was offered to those who wanted to express their dissatisfaction with the government propaganda.

A total of 260,000 blank bows were added to them, which, according to Hadházy, is a great success. The government says they have been returned 1.8 million, but independent MPs question the credibility of that. When they wanted to look at the sheets sent to the government during a previous consultation, they also found many empty boxes. They still want to see the bows returned to the government, but have not yet received a response to their request.

They want activity

Hadházy and Szél said from the beginning that they did not want to compete with the government in the number of bows: the government could give it away, while it could be delivered by mail or activists, and in their experience many were afraid to participate in any opposition in the country.

According to the parliamentarians, the essence of the meeting was precisely to activate the opposition, people who sympathize with them to seek contact between them and find out who is willing to volunteer, in this case collecting sheets, while they prepare for the 2022 elections. These goals, they said, were well met.

“For us, each bow has its own story,” Wind told 444, recalling that it so happened that an old man in his eighties traveled 40 kilometers just to throw the bows collected in his village. Sometimes someone with a mask, cap, covering his face would throw many bows from a bicycle to a collection point. Most did not send the consultation documents by mail, but handed them over to people who volunteered for the collection. MEPs are also very much looking forward to these volunteers during the 22nd campaign.

In many settlements, parties and non-governmental organizations also met, and it was their meeting, the experience of joint action, which was one of the main objectives of the campaign. Momentum participated in the deportations, they were the ones who collected the most from the parties. The MSZP collected the bows in their offices, and at some level all opposition parties participated in the action. It is windy that this type of joint action can be used to organize opposition coalitions for the next elections, so it is important to organize similar initiatives.

“What is needed now is not new organizations, but organizations on the opposition side,” Hadházy added. According to him, opposition-minded voters must constantly be given goals and tasks to stay active and get to know each other as much as possible. “The collection was also good because the people who lived nearby realized that they are not alone, others think of the Orbán system like them, it is a very important experience in smaller settlements,” said Wind.

“Apathy, passivity is the biggest problem on the opposition side, and that is exactly what the Orbans would cling to, they want to believe that we are small and divided, unable to do anything. That is why we need such actions,” they said. “When they asked me what all of this was good for, my simplest answer was something happened,” Wind said. And when Hadházy was asked why only 300,000 had been raised, it should have been 3 million, he always responded by saying: “If you had also raised, there would have been more.

Wind explained personally to the Privacy Commissioner that they had acted legally

According to the deputies, Fidesz misbehaved with the collection and therefore launched a major media campaign against them. During the summer, pro-government newspapers wrote a lot about the fact that the collection could be illegal, creating databases with it, and Fidesz politicians also spoke about the action of the Soros network. Data Protection Commissioner Attila Péterfalvi said it could raise the possibility of breaking the law if data were actually collected about voters. However, Szél and Hadházy did not collect data on who sent the sheets. Most of them, if they wanted, would not even know, because the copies delivered to the collection points do not show it, while the envelopes of those who arrived by mail were thrown away, even if there was a sender, they did not look at it. Bernadett Szél went to his office in St. Petersburg, where he told him why his concern was unfounded. After that, the official press stopped referring to the concerns of the Data Protection Commissioner.

They want a demonstration of hundreds of thousands

MEPs want to take the enthusiasm further and give people another task. In the fight against propaganda, two new objectives have been set: to ban advertising paid for by the government and to put at the head of the public media a person who also runs into the opposition. That is why people are called to demonstrate on October 23 in front of the public television headquarters on Kunigunda Street, and the building is scheduled to be blocked. According to Hadházy, if one hundred thousand people are there, they can achieve their goal. If it is less, they can send a message to the power that many are demanding change.