Chairman and Members of SMK Republican Presidium Resign from Posts

Chairman and Members of SMK Republican Presidium Resign from Posts

Bratislava, March 3 (TASR) – Ethnic-Hungarian SMK party chairman Jozsef Menyhart and members of the party’s republican presidium have resigned from their posts following the party’s unsuccessful result in Saturday’s (February 29) general election, SMK press secretary Robert Kralik told TASR on Tuesday.

Hungarian Community Solidarity (MKS), of which SMK formed part, garnered only 3.9 percent of the votes and so failed to make it into parliament.

Republican Council chair Peter Ory will occupy the post of the party’s temporary coordinator in charge of preparing its April congress, where SMK’s new chairman and top functionaries should be elected.

“He’ll be assisted by a temporary republican presidium comprised of the nine party candidates who gained the highest number of preferential votes in the general election,” said Kralik. Meanwhile, the republican presidium decided that talks with the Most-Hid party will be held only after both parties elect new chairs and top functionaries.

Most-Hid, which garnered 2.05 percent of the votes and so was also left outside parliament, has invited SMK to the negotiating table. Most-Hid leader Bela Bugar, who has also announced that he’ll step down as the party chairman, called Menyhart on election night. “Ethnic Hungarians and other ethnic minorities have been left without parliamentary representation, and we mustn’t allow this to happen in the next election. We must start working immediately,” said Most-Hid spokesperson Klara Magdeme. Most-Hid’s new chairman should be elected at a party congress.