Balint Pastor warns Vojvodina Hungarians need MPs
The president of the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians says the community without representatives in parliament is left unprotected, citing Slovakia and school figures.
Balint Pastor, president of the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians (SVM), told Subotica Hungarian Radio that the Hungarian community in Vojvodina would be left unprotected if it lost its representatives in parliament. N1 and Danas carried the statement, citing RTV Pannon, and it came in the thick of the campaign for the snap parliamentary elections scheduled for October 25.
Pastor said that during the campaign he has visited 50 places in Vojvodina. According to the report, he also raised the warning about losing parliamentary representation at a citizens’ forum in Temerin.
What did Pastor notice on the ground?
From conversations with people, the SVM president said, he saw an “enormous danger” in the fact that part of the Vojvodina Hungarian community votes for Serbian parties. He added that it makes no difference to him which Serbian party that is.
At the forum in Temerin, according to Subotica Hungarian Radio, he said:
The Vojvodina Hungarian community would be left unprotected if it lost its representatives in parliament.
Pastor did not name any Serbian party, and the statement carried by N1 and Danas makes no mention of the DSHV either. The newsroom previously reported that the DSHV is without a candidate in parliamentary elections for the first time.
Why Slovakia?
As a warning, Pastor pointed to an example from the neighborhood. In his statement to the radio station, he said:
Ten years ago in Slovakia, the party of the local Hungarians failed to enter parliament in Bratislava, and it has not managed to return since.
The consequences of that outcome, in his words, are visible today. “In Slovakia there is nobody responsible for Hungarian issues, even though twice as many Hungarians live there as in Serbia,” Pastor said.
From that he drew a broader view on representation: a person who has no steady contact with his own community, who does not go to its events and does not know its problems, cannot represent those problems either. That is why, as he put it, SVM representatives tour the field and speak up for the interests of the Hungarian community even outside campaign season.
How many classes are taught in Hungarian?
Pastor also gave figures on schooling. According to him, Vojvodina has more than 800 primary school classes taught in Hungarian, and 500 of them have fewer than 15 pupils. Those classes, he said, still exist because of SVM’s efforts. The figures come from his statement, and the sources the newsroom reviewed do not say what he based them on.
Online hatred and face-to-face talks
Pastor also said that the hatred spread online by certain people and organizations is simply not felt in the real world. Those who come to SVM meetings, he said, are not only people who support the party:
And that is not because only people who support us come to these talks. People who do not support us come too. It has even happened that political opponents showed up.
The SVM president also described how such meetings go: “Even then, a normal and civil dialogue developed, even with political opponents, because a face-to-face conversation is something else entirely.”
The elections take place on October 25, and the Republic Electoral Commission has declared the SVM electoral list.
