Local Elections – Hungary not strong, if 4 million live in poverty, says Socialist leader
(MTI) – There are no strong municipalities, and there is no strong Hungary, if there are four million poor people in the country, the leader of the opposition Socialists said on the campaign trail on Saturday.
“This group has been left without representation and partnership and without a safety belt,” Jozsef Tobias told a public forum in Papa in western Hungary.
There are 620,000 children living in Hungary in mouldy and damp homes, 170,000 lack access to proper baths and another 300,000 do not get proper meals, Tobias said, making reference to an international study released about Hungarian society on Friday.
He said it is the responsibility of municipalities to manage social tension generated by the current government’s decisions.
Ildiko Borbely Bango, a lawmaker for the Socialists, told a press conference on Saturday that the party demands from the Central Statistical Office the release of figures on poverty in Hungary to the public.
Until know, KSH as a routine has released related figures it reported under EU methodology by September 20. But this year the office said it could only publish these data in November, citing a budget shortage, said Bango.
She noted that Eurosat, the EU’s statistical office, has already reported on the basis of data received from KSH that the number of people living in poverty in Hungary had increased by an annual 100,000 in 2013.
In comparison, poverty dropped in all of the neighbouring countries with their proportion to the population standing at 26 percent in Poland, at 20 percent in Slovakia and 14.6 percent in the Czech Republic, she said. The figure in Hungary is, however, 33 percent, she added.
The opposition lawmaker said her party assumes that it would be rather “unpleasant” for the Orban government to release the figures and allow voters to face the fact that “Hungary is sliding into poverty” just before the upcoming local elections.
Photo: MTI – Tamas Kovacs
Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters