Péter Magyar vows ‘peaceful regime change’ as Tisza Party unveils bold reform plan
Tisza Party will start off in the next few months with the motto: change of the regime peacefully and responsibly, the leader of the opposition party told a congress in Nagykanizsa, southwestern Hungary, on Saturday.
Péter Magyar told the event dubbed A well-functioning country that the time had come for joint action. “We are making preparations so that after the election victory, we can immediately feel and make everyone feel that we are turning in a new direction after the dead end of the past twenty years,” he said.
“We will make it clear that we will preserve what’s good and what truly serves the public’s interests, and we will try to make it even better,” he added. He called for a new unity in society and added that Tisza must incorporate all different directions. “There is no left and no right, only Hungarian,” he added.
He said they would set out to transform health care, radically reducing the length of waiting lists, the shortage of doctors, and the proportion of hospital infections. He added that at least an annual 500 billion forints more money would be spent from the budget on state health care.
He said the introduction of 5 percent VAT on healthy food and zero percent VAT on medicine was “carved in stone”, and a special SZEP card would be granted to pensioners, enabling them to spend 200,000 forints on food, medicine and health preservation.
He said several elements of the programme dubbed “Road to a functioning Hungary” would be presented in the upcoming period, and all feedback will be collected from members of the public during a tour of the country in the next few weeks.
He said the reconstruction of Hungary would rest on four basic pillars.
The largest home rental and home creation programme since postcommunist transformation will be launched, a reform of transportation will be started, and an energy modernisation scheme to fight energy poverty will be introduced, he said. “The most clever Hungarians will be brought back home from around the world, to build a new digital and knowledge-based country, the budget will be optimised, setting up companies will be accelerated, and “caring workplaces” will be created, he added.
He said settling the situation of FX loan holders was another task ahead, as well as making the Hungarian workforce cheaper and more attractive with the help of targeted tax allowances. He added that the party’s water strategy focused on water retention, irrigation management, climate protection, and water and green consciousness.
He said the plans would be financed partly by “recovering stolen public assets” and bringing home resources due for Hungary.
Magyar also said that “starting from today, all lending from abroad and financial machinations carried out by the government, exclusively those who got rich from the system, will bear responsibility”.
It was announced at the general assembly that Andrea Bujdosó would lead the party group in the Budapest General Assembly. Operations director Gabor Posfai said that after a two-round vote, the party’s individual candidates would be presented at the party’s third congress in November.
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