Good evening, everyone. All I would like to add to the Mayor’s words is the following: Budapest has lost a mayor, but I have gained an excellent advisor.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
These elections were not just about Budapest, however. So first of all allow me to thank every Hungarian voter who went to the polls today. Secondly, I’d like to congratulate everyone who has won: congratulations to the mayors, and congratulations to the elected councillors. I’d like to congratulate everyone, of course, but I’d especially like to congratulate those mayors who won mandates under the banner of the alliance between Fidesz and the Christian Democratic People’s Party: our mayors, many of whom have earned the trust placed in them with hard work over many years. Everyone can see from the results that this was a difficult election campaign. It was a massive political battle fought in the open. It was a battle of the kind that there should be in a democracy built upon competition between parties.
Moving on to the totals of the various kinds of vote: our votes for county lists, towns and cities. In order to arrive at – to somehow stitch together – some kind of overall national result, we’ve made some calculations. This is no easy task, but, based on list votes, we can tell ourselves that the alliance of Fidesz and the Christian Democratic People’s Party [Fidesz–KDNP] has again achieved a result above 50 per cent – which is gradually becoming something of a tradition. Congratulations on that. It’s only right and proper that, on behalf of us all, I should thank István Tarlós for his work as Mayor of Budapest over the past nine years. István, we will not forget – we will never forget – that you were the one who led the city out of bankruptcy, who pulled it out of bankruptcy. And it’s thanks to you – though many others have also worked hard for this, but perhaps at the end of the day it’s primarily thanks to you – that today we have such a beautiful capital city on safe foundations. And it is a city that we can all be proud of: the capital of the nation. For nine years, the prevailing arrangement was that the political force providing the governing majority also provided the leadership of the nation’s capital, Budapest. This is how we’ve lived our lives over the past nine years. We can be proud of that – not only you István, but also us in government, who’ve acted as your partner in Budapest. Today the people of the capital decided that what follows should be something different. We accept this decision, and all we can say is that, in the interest of the country and the people living in Budapest, we stand ready to cooperate.
There is still some uncertainty with regard to the situation outside Budapest, but on the whole as far as I can see Fidesz–KDNP continues to have a majority in 13 of the 23 county-ranked cities in Hungary, while 10 have left-wing majorities. As regards county municipal assemblies, I can inform you that Fidesz–KDNP has won 19 out of 19: the total number in Hungary. I not only want to thank the people of rural Hungary, but I am deeply moved by my feeling of gratitude to them for the trust they have placed in the Government of Hungary today – and also in us personally. We thank rural Hungary for its support; Hungarians in the countryside will be able to rely on us just as we were able to rely on them today. If we look at the number of mayors in settlements with populations of more than five thousand, I can tell you that there will be 147 Fidesz–KDNP mayors in those settlements: more than half the total number of those settlements. So we also have a majority in this category, in this “event”.
Tonight I can tell you that the elections have proved that the alliance of Fidesz and the Christian Democratic People’s Party continues to be Hungary’s strongest party. I promise you that we shall behave accordingly, safe in the knowledge of this fact. For us Hungary will continue to come first. And while for us Hungary will continue to come first, I would like to say in conclusion that today there was an election in Poland which is also very important for Hungary. In that election the Polish governing party has obtained the majority of parliamentary seats, and will be able to form a government on its own. Congratulations to our Polish friends. As for us Hungarians, we will evaluate and analyse the results, we will face up to the numbers that will follow from them, and in the period ahead we will shape the policies of Fidesz and the Christian Democratic People’s Party accordingly. Once again I thank everyone for their support. Thank you for your trust and your votes. Thank you, activists, for working night and day, for investing many hours of hard work in this struggle. This alone has meant that today we can still say that the alliance of Fidesz and the Christian Democratic People’s Party is the strongest political force in Hungary. And we shall work to ensure that it remains so.
Thank you.