Ladik and Tolnai urge Hungarians to back the Student List
Ten public figures from the Hungarian community in Vojvodina call for political renewal in a joint statement and urge voters to circle number 3 on October 25.
Ten well-known figures from the Hungarian community in Vojvodina, among them writer and visual artist Katalin Ladik and film director Sabolc Tolnai, urged voters in their community on Wednesday, October 21, to vote for the “Students Win” list, number 3 on the ballot, in the October 25 election. The call came in a joint statement, along with a sharp assessment of the policy pursued by Hungarian political leaders over the past 16 years.
Who signed the statement?
There are ten signatories, and according to the media outlets that carried the statement, they come from several fields of the arts:
- Katalin Ladik, writer, actress and visual artist
- Sabolc Tolnai, film director
- Gabor Bunford Buga, music artist
- Zuzana Kalmar, actress
- Sandor Kerekes, painter
- Djerdj Hernjak, theater director
- Congor Berta Bongor, performer and composer
- Ana-Marija Bagdal, influencer
- Gabor Pongo, actor
- Juli Soti, singer
The statement was published in the morning. According to Masina, the letter was posted on X by students of the Faculty of Medicine in Novi Sad.
What does the appeal say?
The signatories start from the premise that political representation carries responsibility: those who decide on behalf of a community for a long time must answer for both the results and the consequences of their decisions. They then turn to an assessment of the record, without naming any party in the parts of the statement that have been reported:
“The Hungarian political leadership in Vojvodina has still not adequately faced the consequences of the policy it pursued over the past 16 years. The decline in the number of members of our community, damaged trust and the shrinking space for public action raise serious questions about the results of that policy and the responsibility of those who led it,” the signatories state.
The statement gives no figures for the decline in the community’s numbers. The answer to those questions, the signatories write, cannot be fresh self-justification, but an honest reckoning with responsibility and an opening for political renewal.
They explain their support for the Student List this way: “We stand with this list because it stands for change and a different approach to political responsibility: for a political life in which a mandate is a trust, officeholders answer for their actions, and political representation truly serves citizens.”
They close with a direct message to voters: “We call on voters to back the list ‘Students Win’, number 3, on October 25. The decision about the future of our community belongs to all of us.”
How are Vojvodina’s Hungarians split ahead of the vote?
The Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians (SVM), led by Balint Pastor, has been the largest Hungarian party in Serbia since 1997. It is running on its own in the October 25 election under the slogan “Hungarian Unity” and has previously refused to back the students. Pastor answered calls from Hungarian opposition parties to join the Student List by saying that SVM is not a “gathering of political prostitutes”.
The Student List has already been endorsed by the Democratic Community of Vojvodina Hungarians (DZVM) and the League of Social Democrats of Vojvodina. DZVM claims that SVM is deceiving voters, because there can be no “Hungarian unity” with Seselj.
SVM’s response to today’s statement from the ten public figures was not available at the time of writing.
