- Demonstrators are demanding higher wages for teachers
- Orban faces major challenge with inflation above 20%
- Promises economic stability amid slowdown and rising energy prices
- Orban was re-elected in the April elections
BUDAPEST (Portal) – Thousands of Hungarians, including teachers and students, marched through Budapest on Sunday to protest against the government demanding higher wages for teachers and a curb on rising inflation that is eroding incomes.
As protesters crossed a bridge over the Danube, they held up banners reading “Orban go away” and “No teachers, no future,” hours after nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban pledged to safeguard economic stability and even lower household energy bills to limit as the EU slides into an “economic crisis”.
But at the latest in a series of anti-government protests, participants said his government had failed teachers by paying them meager salaries while inflation, which topped 20% in September and is still rising, became unbearable.
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“I’m here… for my kids, it should change,” said Gyongyi Bereczky, a postman who was joining the protests for the first time. “This runaway inflation… we can’t save at all, we just can’t make ends meet when prices are skyrocketing.”
Teachers and students are protesting for higher wages, a solution to the growing teacher shortage and the right to strike. read on read on
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban attends the inauguration of the Mindszentyneum during celebrations marking the 66th anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian Uprising in Zalaegerszeg, Hungary, October 23, 2022. Portal/Bernadett Szabo
As the country marked the anniversary of the 1956 uprising against Soviet rule, Orban, who was re-elected to a fourth straight term in April, said earlier Sunday that the next year would bring challenges from the war in neighboring Ukraine.
“A war in the east and an economic crisis in the west,” Orban told his supporters in Zalaegerszeg, some 200 km (124 miles) west of Budapest, adding that there was “a financial crisis and an economic downturn in the EU”.
“In 1956 we learned that unity is needed in difficult times…we will maintain economic stability, everyone will have a job, we can defend the energy bill ceiling scheme, and families will not be left alone.”
Caps on gas and electricity bills have been a key part of Orban’s policy, but the program’s costs have skyrocketed this year due to rising energy prices, straining the state budget. The government was forced to remove the cap for households with higher consumption from August 1st.
It is set to amend the 2023 budget in December, as the budget law passed in July projects growth of 4.1% next year while inflation has hovered at 5.2% – projections that have since been rendered obsolete by double-digit price increases. Economic growth is now expected to slow to 1% next year.
The forint fell to a record low earlier this month, forcing the central bank to raise interest rates in an emergency.
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Reporting by Krisztina Than, additional reporting by Krisztina Fenyo Editing by William Maclean
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