Krisztina Baranyi, mayor of Budapest’s 9th district is a woman who likes to claim the title of ‘independent’ for herself as some sort of badge of honour. However, she never remembers to highlight that the cause of her political independence is that she belonged to a party which was as genuinely popular as syphilis. When her party finally vanished into the ether, she remained. She’s not independent by choice, her party merely vanished in a cloud of utter indifference.
An opposition politician with no party, she became mayor of Budapest’s 9th district mainly as a result of spreading falsehoods about the mayor and his team. It didn’t bother her that the local council sued regarding these lies, and won. To this day, Baranyi repeats, ad nauseum, the lies and slander that a court has decided have no basis. That’s just the sort of person she is.
She lies at other times, too. Most recently, her bulging bag of falsehoods was lugged into the light in The Guardian, of all places.
In reality, a Hungarian left-wing journalist offered some material up to The Guardian, nothing more. But as the Hungarian division of the Leftwaffe hear it’ll be published in the ‘free world’, you can feel their swelling pride.
The article related to the plan of Baranyi to erect a statue dedicated (it says here) to the theme of Black Lives Matter. And there’s one paragraph which really reveals Baranyi for what she truly is:
“The BLM goals of opposing racism and police brutality are just as relevant in Hungary as anywhere else,” said Krisztina Baranyi, the ninth district mayor, citing the Orbán government’s relentless campaign against migrants and refugees, as well as the systematic discrimination against Hungary’s Roma minority.
Baranyi cites the ‘systematic’ discrimination against the Roma. The truth, however, is that the Roma of the 9th were treated far better when the old management, Fidesz, the same party as Orbán’s, were in charge.
When the district was Fidesz-led, things were very, very different. In an interview, József Tar, head of the Roma local government, revealed that, in contrast to working with Fidesz, working with Baranyi and her assorted bunch of councillors has resulted in far worse conditions for the local Roma population. And requests for information have been made in vain:
“The local council haven’t replied to a single letter of ours.”
In the interview, József revealed that when the local government was Fidesz-led there was genuine cooperation between the local government and the Roma local government. The mayor and his deputies were willing and ready to work together with the local Roma community and their leaders to develop programmes for the 9th district Roma that were suited to their needs. The money came from the local government budget. Since the election of Baranyi, the funding has been greatly reduced. With the reduced funding, employing a full-time secretary and liaison officer for the Roma national government was no longer possible.
Every summer the Roma national government organises a summer camp for children of the district, the majority Roma, to go to Lake Balaton for a week. The disadvantaged children of the district, whose families cannot afford to pay for holidays get a week at Balaton. For them, this is their only chance of a holiday by the lake.
And the local government used to make sure that extra help was provided. The summer camp, for 100 children had a fixed budget. That budget remains the same, but when Fidesz were in charge, the local council always provided additional funds to the amount of HUF 1 million to help cover the Roma national government’s expenses with the summer camp. From this extra money, József and his team were able to pay for things that the kids wanted but couldn’t afford: treats like a day out at the funfair, or that classic Balaton beach food, lángos (imagine a dinner-plate-sized deep-fried disc of dough. Like a flattened, savoury doughnut to which a generous portion of sour cream and cheese are added).
So, the local government then, ensured that the financial burden was lessened. The extra money made it possible for these disadvantaged children to enjoy such treats that otherwise they and their families just can’t afford.
Since Baranyi formed her cabinet, all that has stopped. The budget for the summer camp is the same, but the extra HUF 1 million is no longer offered. Now although Baranyi is barely able to utter a sentence without repeating slander regarding the finances she inherited from her predecessor, János Bácskai, the fact is that Baranyi formed her cabinet with an extra nine billion forints on the account. Of course, given the example she set when signing a contract with the old, pre-Bácskai, liberal mayor of the district, Ferenc Gegesy,
for HUF 900,000 a month in return for him acting as an advisor, that extra HUF 9,000,000,000 might not last as long as we’d think.
Last year, as far as the Roma kids were concerned, things took another turn for the worse: they were shut out of the summer camp. While various members of Baranyi’s cabinet drank themselves daft and raised Cain in a manner which their Balaton neighbours found objectionable, the Roma national government found that their slot had been allocated to someone else. Left out of the date-selection process, József was repeatedly fobbed off until such time as he was told that their usual slot had already been taken. Schools that had funding to organise trips took precedence, and the Roma children of the district were relegated to the bottom of the pile.
The Roma national government were obliged to finance the holiday themselves. That, in turn, now that accommodation had to be found and paid for, meant that the 100-strong group had to be reduced in size. As a result of Baranyi’s management of the situation, more than 30 kids missed out on their chance of a summer holiday.
The systematic discrimination that the Leftwaffe tell us to associate with Fidesz is, in fact, a feature of the Left.
Baranyi presents the standard lies to the western media whilst denying – at local government level – summer holidays for disadvantaged Roma children.