Budapest commemorates the revolution of 1848 during the peak campaign. The public holiday is turning into a political demonstration between Orbán and Magyar.
The central celebrations of the Hungarian national holiday of the outbreak of the anti-Habsburg revolution in 1848-1849 began on Sunday morning with the raising of the national flag with military honors in Budapest’s Kossuth Square. The celebrations of the 178th anniversary of the revolution take place 28 days before the parliamentary elections, therefore, according to political scientists, they are expected to be a crucial event of the culminating election campaign, informs the correspondent of TASR in Budapest.
- Official celebrations of the anniversary of the revolution of 1848 to 1849 began in Budapest.
- The celebrations take place during the culmination of the campaign before the upcoming parliamentary elections.
- Prime Minister and Fidesz leader Viktor Orbán will make a speech on Kossuth Square.
President Tamás Sulyok and Chief of the General Staff of the Hungarian Armed Forces Gábor Böröndi took part in the ceremony of raising the flag in front of the parliament building with military honors.
Marches of government and opposition forces
Part of the celebrations is the traditional pro-government Peace March in the morning organized by the Civil Lockdown Public Foundation (CÖF–CÖKA). The participants of the march will listen to the speech of the prime minister and the chairman of the Fidesz party, Viktor Orbán, on Kossuth Square.
The march will also be organized by the opposition non-parliamentary party TISZA, led by its chairman Péter Magyar, who is Orbán’s challenger. Magyar will give a speech in the afternoon at Náměstí hrdinov.
Orbán and Magyar on social networks
Both the ruling Fidesz and TISZA camps are trying to demonstrate their strength through the largest possible participation of their supporters in these marches.
“Your country needs you! See you tomorrow at the Peace March!” Orbán wrote a stern challenge on Facebook, noting that this march will be the “biggest” in terms of the number of participants.
“This year’s March 15 will be a day of peaceful and joyful resurrection of the Hungarian people. This will be a day when size matters,” responded the chairman of the TISZA party in a post on the same social network. “At tomorrow’s gigantic National March, we will send a message to the corrupt authorities that can be seen not only from the moon, but also from Moscow! Our national holiday this year will be the day of the rebirth of free Hungary,” added Magyar.
Opposition charges about restrictions
The opposition leader announced on the social network that, according to his information, the Ministry of Defense ordered the military closure of the airspace over the inner parts of the capital. According to Magyar, the state authorities are trying by all means to prevent the visual documentation of the opposition demonstration of “huge dimensions”. And not only by means of drones, but also want to prevent, according to him, the taking of photos of the participants of the demonstration from commercial planes over the capital, as was also the case on last year’s national holiday on October 23.
