Hungarian-born financier George Soros, whose foundation has spent US$125’000 on a poster campaign urging Hungarians to vote in April national elections, has been told to stop trying to influence the campaign. The billionaire philanthropist has helped fund thousands of election posters featuring rock stars, the disabled and a semi-naked lesbian couple in a bid to encourage voters to turn out in the fiercely contested ballot, due on 7 April. But Laszlo Kover, vice-president of the Fidesz Party, the senior partner in Hungary's center-right coalition, said late on Monday that Soros had no right to get involved in campaigning. "Why does Soros think anyone gave him the right to interfere with the elections?" Kover told a campaign meeting. Soros's Open Society Foundation put up 5’000 posters in and around Budapest, carrying the slogan, "We're going to vote. Are you?" and aired radio commercials urging people to vote. Anna Delia, executive director of the Soros Foundation in Hungary, said the election posters did not favor any party. "Our sole aim is to increase turnout in order to have the most legitimate government after the elections," she said. "We don't need the government to give us any rights regarding the elections. Only the citizens are empowered to decide the outcome." Voter turnout at Hungary's last two national elections in 1994 and 1998 was relatively low at just above 50 per cent and political analysts say low turnout this year would favor the extreme-right Hungarian Justice & Life Party (MIEP). Kover's Fidesz and the main opposition Socialists have been running neck-and-neck in opinion polls for months and analysts say MIEP, which won its first seats in Parliament in 1998, could end up holding the balance of power. Any coalition, however informal, between Fidesz and MIEP - a party that has a damning record on anti-Semitism and which rails against foreign influence in business and the media - could dent Hungary's bid to join the EU by 2004. Kover, widely seen as Fidesz's leading ideologist and second only to Prime Minister Viktor Orban in the party hierarchy, is chief architect of a Fidesz campaign aimed at wooing the far-right vote in a bid to be the first post-communist government to win re-election. Kover ruled out the possibility of a grand coalition between Fidesz and the Socialists, the two biggest parties, but stopped short of excluding a coalition with MIEP. "There's no way of agreeing with these (Socialists)," Kover said in response to a question. "We can have a deal, but they would then stab us in the back without hesitation." Fidesz has been rattled by Socialist opposition to a deal the government struck last year with neighbor Romania over a new Status Law which gives ethnic Hungarians living in nearby states access to medical, travel, educational and vocational benefits. In a bid to win Bucharest's agreement, Hungary opened up the accord to Romania's low-paid workforce, prompting opposition fears that Romanians would take seasonal jobs in Hungary, dragging down wages and increasing local unemployment. (Reuters)
| | | © 1996-2001 ISN, , The ISN cannot be held responsible for the content of the sites to which it provides links or for the availability of servers or links.
===== Kevin Dean Buffalo, NY ICQ: 8616001 Buffalo Activist Network http://www.buffaloactivist.net
__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Greetings - Send FREE e-cards for every occasion! http://greetings.yahoo.com