History
The party was founded in 1998 in response to an anti-coalition law passed. The law prevented parties from forming electoral cartels at election time, which small parties had used to overcome the 5% electoral threshold. Three parties representing the Hungarian minority had formed such a cartel, called 'Hungarian Coalition' in the 1994 election, and had won 10.2% of the vote. To comply with the new law, the three parties – the Hungarian Christian Democratic Movement, Coexistence, and the Hungarian Civic Party – merged to form the Party of the Hungarian Coalition.
Following the 2002 parliamentary election in Slovakia, the Party of the Hungarian Coalition joined the Slovak governing coalition for the second time (after the 1998–2002 term), obtained 321,069 votes (11.16% of all votes), and was the most stable political party in the governing coalition. At the EU parliament election in 2004 the party won 13.24% of the vote.
The party had 4 ministers (Pál Csáky – Deputy Prime Minister for European Integration and Minority Rights, László Miklós – Minister of Environment, László Gyurovszky – Minister of Construction and Regional Development and Zsolt Simon – Minister of Agriculture) and 6 state secretaries (Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Economy, Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Construction and Regional Development) in the Slovak government. Béla Bugár, the president of the Party of the Hungarian Coalition at that time, was the Vice President of the National Council of the Slovak Republic.
In the parliamentary election of 17 June 2006, the party won 11.7% of the popular vote and 20 out of 150 seats, but lost its participation in the government. In the parliamentary election of 12 June 2010, the party missed the 5% border needed for participation in parliament by receiving 4.33% and lost its position in parliament.
Read more about this topic: Party Of The Hungarian Coalition
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