A New Party
On 22 October 2011 Gyurcsány has announced he is leaving the Socialist Party and will set up a new parliamentary group after succeeding in persuading the necessary number of lawmakers to join him. The new Democratic Coalition party is to be a “Western, Left-wing” formation with ten lawmakers, Gyurcsány announced on the first anniversary that its forerunner, the Democratic Coalition Platform, was set up. He said the reason why he had decided to leave the Socialists was because the party had failed in its efforts to transform itself. Socialist representatives strongly condemned Gyurcsány, who had only last week signed a pledge to stay on in the party. Gyurcsány in his speech branded the new constitution as “illegitimate”, and insisted that members and heads of the independent branches of state such as the constitutional court and the public prosecutor “exclusively serve Viktor Orbán”.
The formerly-existing Democratic Party (Demokrata Párt) has changed its name for Democratic Coalition (DK) and elected Gyurcsány its leader on 6 November 2011. At a press conference, Gyurcsány also announced that the renewed party has elected Tamás Bauer, József Debreczeni, Csaba Molnár and Péter Niedermüller deputy chairmen. DK will be Hungary’s “most democratic party” with all the members electing its officials directly at the party congress, Gyurcsány said, adding that the authority of each member in the party’s 12-strong presidium and the chairman itself will be virtually the same.
The new formation, an offspring of Gyurcsány’s former Democratic Coalition Platform within the Socialist Party, has so far received over 3,800 membership applications.
Democratic Coalition will not be allowed to form a new party faction until the spring after leaving the Socialist Party faction, parliament’s Constitutional and Procedural Committee decided on 7 November 2011. According to the parliamentary rules, any parliamentarian that leaves or is expelled from a party faction must sit as an independent candidate for six months before joining another faction. However in April 2012, ruling party Fidesz approved a new House rules under which DK may not form a parliamentary group. The change states that 12 MPs affiliated with a party that fielded a national list at the previous elections and won seats in Parliament – rather than the present 10 – are required to form a fraction. Gyurcsány described "the change in the House rules as petty revenge on the part of the prime minister." Csaba Molnár said they might take the matter to the Constitutional Court and European forums.
Read more about this topic: Democratic Coalition
Famous quotes containing the word party:
“At the moment when a man openly makes known his difference of opinion from a well-known party leader, the whole world thinks that he must be angry with the latter. Sometimes, however, he is just on the point of ceasing to be angry with him. He ventures to put himself on the same plane as his opponent, and is free from the tortures of suppressed envy.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)