Mayor of Budapest since 2019, Gergely Karacsony returned to the campaign with his very particular way of not giving the impression that he is ready to do anything to win. With his polite but distant manners and this large body of almost 2 meters that he does not always know where to place, this 48-year-old former university professor arouses only limited fervor, on May 24, in the small square from Budapest where he came to promote the municipal health program to Budapesters passing through for a blood test.
He receives a few requests for selfies from young people who recognize him and the reproaches of a middle-aged woman who is angry with him for having banned cars from driving on the emblematic Chain Bridge over the Danube. The transformation of this work is, however, one of the rare changes that this lifelong opponent of Viktor Orban has managed to bring to his city of 1.8 million inhabitants in the face of a Prime Minister who has spent the last five years putting legal and financial obstacles in the way of all Budapest City Hall projects.
“We also renovated a metro line and planted more trees than during the entire three previous mandates”defends himself to the World Mr. Karacsony, who hopes to be re-elected for a second term on Sunday June 9, during the municipal elections, organized simultaneously with the European elections in Hungary. “Results are possible in health, for example, despite all the pressure, particularly financial, from the government”he believes.
Surprise appearance by Peter Magyar
In 2019, his election as mayor, previously controlled since 2010 by Mr. Orban’s Fidesz, constituted a political earthquake in this central European country. At the end of an unprecedented alliance, six opposition parties ranging from the left to a former nationalist group had succeeded in seizing the capital and almost half of the large provincial towns. Five years after what remains Mr. Orban’s only major electoral setback in fourteen years in power, the atmosphere has nevertheless changed.
The fault lies with the terrible legislative campaign of 2022, when these same parties tried to repeat their feat of 2019 by nominating a single candidate against Mr. Orban. After the organization of primaries, in which Mr. Karacsony had also presented himself before withdrawing, the six parties had nominated a candidate, Peter Marki-Zay, who never managed to overcome the old bitterness which has agitated since always the opponents of Mr. Orban. He was re-elected by a wide margin, while Mr. Marki-Zay only obtained a humiliating 35% of the votes.
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