Former PM on hunger strike over election draft law

Former Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány and three of his associates began a week-long hunger strike in frpnt of Parlaiment in a protest against the Orbán government’s plans to reform the election system by requiring advance voter registration.

Ferenc Gyurcsány set up a tent on Sunday outside the building of Hungarian Parliament on Kossuth Square in downtown Budapest. He says that a draft law requiring advance voter registration could prevent “hundreds of thousands or even millions” of people from taking part in the elections.

“It is unacceptable that anyone who happens to decide two days before an election that he wants to vote cannot do so and take part in the election,” said Gyurcsány, who was the country’s prime minister between 2004 and 2009.

Opponents of the draft law say that it is aimed at suppressing voter turnout in the upcoming parliamentary election in 2014, improving the chances of victory for the ruling party Fidesz.

The government, however, explains it as a measure that would increase the number of voters among Hungarians living abroad and the members of national minorities within Hungary.