Minor Problem for SZDSZ Campaign Gimmick

While right-wing opposition party Fidesz is being criticized for running campaign posters featuring "real life" people who aren't real, liberal governing party Alliance of Free Democrats is getting grief for a campaign website featuring an average Hungarian boy with the even more average Hungarian name of Pisti Kovács that also appears to be a heaping load of BS. According to party campaign leader Gábor Horn, the Liberals want their campaign to be about the future of Hungarians like Pisti, who is "five years old, doesn't vote, doesn't pay taxes, doesn't drive to work, doesn't pay social security, and nobody has promised him 15th-month chocolate," all apparently referring to the enticements promised by the two leading parties.

Unlike Fidesz's "unemployed miner," Pisti is actually getting to speak his mind, and even preempted party chief Gábor Kuncze with his own "state of the nation" speech. "My name is Pisti Kovács. I will give my evaluation of the year speech. Last year was pretty good, and next year I'm going to school. I would like a bicycle. Thank you for your attention. Bye." Meanwhile, it remains a secret whether Pisti really is Pisti, or, like the "unemployed miner," a fabrication. Either way, rightist portal gondola.hu is already grousing that using a kid in the campaign is unethical, because the UN prohibits children from working.