Hungarian PM calls for high turnout, 'no' vote, in Sunday's referendum

With one day to go before a government-sponsored anti-migrant referendum in Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orban wrote a lengthy article appearing in Saturday's conservative daily Magyar Idok.

The referendum question is: "Do you want the European Union to be able to prescribe the mandatory settlement of non-Hungarian citizens in Hungary even without the consent of Parliament?"

The government initiated the referendum following a European Union super-majority decision to distribute the first 100,000 or so migrants among the EU members. Hungary was one of the few countries opposed.

Orban is vehemently opposed to allowing any migrants into Hungary. He called the referendum a "crucial" one.

He warned that "left-wing liberals" had been "agitating" against "national interests," playing along with Brussels and doing the groundwork for allowing unlimited numbers of "illegal immigrants" to settle in Hungary.

On the surface, Sunday's referendum question appears simple, he said, but it actually includes all issues affecting the fate of the European Union, and within that, of Hungary.

He charged the "Brussels' elite" with inhumane intentions, saying that masses of people had been persuaded to come to Europe by promises that cannot and must not be kept. People smugglers and naive politicians have tricked and are tricking hundreds of thousands of people and now that the "Brusselsites" are being forced to face reality, they are trying to make us pay for the consequences of their bad political decisions, Orban wrote.

They are trying to "exile" the millions of people arriving to the EU to places where they don't want to live and to force them on people who do not want the burden, Hungary's prime minister wrote.

He called the "uncontrolled immigration" a real threat to European peace and security. This was not a "migration crisis," he wrote, but a veritable popular migration that would eventually weigh down Europe when the millions of Africans moved in, "ending peace, order, security, and wellbeing and replacing it with chaos, tension, conflict, violence, and impoverishment."

He blamed the "Brussels' elite" for making decisions without consulting the people of Europe, which, he said, was something generally felt by Europe, and that some of these decisions ran counter to Europe's interests.

"We want this practice to end." Given the balances of power, Hungary alone would not be able to achieve this, but "if we want change, someone has to take the first step." The EU, he said, was at a crossroads: it would either renew itself or fall apart.

"The October 2 Hungarian referendum is a message to all citizens of Europe. Our message could be that bringing the EU to its senses.... depended on all of us, the citizens of Europe, or we could allow it to wreck itself." the prime minister wrote.

For several months now, the government has been running an unprecedented publicity campaign urging the public to go to the polls and vote "no." While pundits have predicted a solid "no" vote, the validity of the referendum is in question, given that 50 percent of all eligible voters must appear and cast valid ballots. With 8,272,626 eligible voters, that means 4,136,313 people will have to vote, a number that is in doubt, particularly since the left-wing opposition has been urging people to stay home. Boosting turnout is therefore a government priority.

Source : XINHUA