Murphy (2014) reports about the Hungarian election campaign on the occasion of the forthcoming parliamentary elections of the 6th of April. On this occasion, the newly established Rroma party Magyarországi Cigány Part tries to give more emphasis to the concerns of the Rroma. The president of the party, Aladar Horvat, held a campaign speech before the residents of Ozd, a former industrial city, with a majority of Rroma: “If we stick together, we can fix our problems. No one else will”, the soft-spoken 49-year-old told Agence France-Presse in Ozd, a rusting former industrial town right on the Slovakian border. Vast steelworks once employed thousands of Roma in Ozd, a town of about 34,000 inhabitants, but today, they lie derelict. Widespread unemployment and poverty has fuelled mistrust against the Roma, and far-right party Jobbik – the country’s third biggest party – is building on that anger.” So far, there were only two Rroma politicians in the 386-member parliament of Hungary, two of them members of the ruling party Fidesz. Murphy describes the distrust of many Rroma against the Hungarian politicians as being massive. The consistent poverty and discrimination over the years made many lose their faith in politics. In addition, several Rroma criticized that a party focusing on ethnic membership was not working in the sense of a successful integration, but would rather make it more difficult.

• Murphy, Peter (2014) New party tries to woo Hungary’s Roma. In: Yahoo News online vom 30.3.2014. http://news.yahoo.com/party-tries-woo-hungarys-roma-130803713.html

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