Janos Ader, a member of the Fidesz party along with Prime Minister Viktor Orban, was re-elected this week. In his speech to parliament, he quoted a Hungarian poet, saying: "If we don't have a homeland, then we don't exist." File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo

March 13 (UPI) -- Hungarian President Janos Ader was re-elected by parliament to a second, five-year term, defeating a challenger his party claimed was backed by George Soros.

In the balloting, 170 of 191 members of parliament voted in the two rounds of the election. The first round required a two-thirds majority.

Members of parliament voted in two rounds to re-elect Ader, a member of the Fidesz party, headed by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

The ruling right-wing Fidesz-KDNP coalition delivered 131 votes for Ader in the first round of the election -- two short of the required supermajority -- with opposition parties combining for 39 votes for challenger Laszlo Majtenyi.

The second round required a simple majority, and Ader defeated Majtenyi by 131 to 39, with the DK opposition party abstaining.

Prior to the casting of ballots, both candidates gave a 15-minute speech to parliament. Majtenyi thanked those ministers who had supported him, and jokingly noted that he had not extended thanks to George Soros, the Hungarian-born billionaire who has financed left-wing and social justice movements around the world through his Open Society Foundations. He went on to say that "the state has succumbed to corruption" and must return to the rule of law.

Ader talked of the accomplishments of his first term, including the Serbian government accepting his apology for war crimes committed by Hungarian military personnel in WWII. He went on to detail his participation in the fight against climate change, and closed by quoting a Hungarian poet named Janos Arany: "If we don't have a homeland, then we don't exist. We won't have oxen or sheep, we won't have homes or land. We will not be ourselves, because a homeland is built from these things. Now the question is, do we want the homeland to live, or not?"</s>Hungarian President Janos Ader delivers his speech in the foreground of Speaker of the Parliament Laszlo Kover during the plenary session of the unicameral Hungarian Parliament in Budapest, Hungary, Monday, March 13, 2017, when the deputies elect the President of Hungary for the next term of five years. Janos Ader is up against the candidate of the opposition coalition Laszlo Majtenyi for the post. (Szilard Koszticsak/MTI via AP)</s>BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Hungary’s president has been re-elected by lawmakers for a five-year term in the second round of voting in parliament.

Janos Ader, nominated by Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s governing Fidesz party, on Monday defeated Laszlo Majtenyi, a former ombudsman for data protection nominated by the left-wing opposition. Ader won by 131 votes to 39, with 29 abstentions.

Hungary’s Basic Law, as the Constitution is called, allows the president, a mostly ceremonial post meant to embody national unity, to serve for a maximum of two terms.

The 57-year-old Ader is a former parliamentary speaker and member of the European Parliament. The 66-year-old Majtenyi currently heads the Eotvos Karoly Institute, a liberal think tank.

Ader has often spoken out on issues related to environmental protection and ensuring the global water supply.</s>President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has met with President of the French National Assembly Claude Bartolone in Paris.</s>BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Hungarian lawmakers re-elected President Janos Ader to his largely ceremonial post on Monday, ensuring another five-year term for a supporter of populist Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government.

Ader, nominated by Orban’s governing Fidesz party, defeated Laszlo Majtenyi, a former ombudsman for data protection nominated by the left-wing opposition. Ader won by 131 votes to 39, with 29 abstentions.

A second round was needed because Ader fell two votes short of the 133 votes needed for a two-thirds majority in the first round. Only a simple majority was needed to win in round two.

The 57-year-old Ader is a former parliamentary speaker and member of the European Parliament. He became president in May 2012, after the departure of former Olympic fencing champion Pal Schmitt, who resigned after 20 months in office because of a plagiarism scandal.

Ader has often spoken out on issues related to environmental protection and ensuring the global water supply.

In March last year he clashed with the government over legislation which would have shielded from scrutiny hundreds of millions of dollars of public funds used by foundations set up the National Bank of Hungary. Critics accused the central bank, headed Gyorgy Matolcsy, of using the foundations to distribute money to friends and supporters and of splurging on real estate deals and other non-banknig activities. Ader sent the legislation for review to the Constitutional Court, which later struck down the legislation..

“He could have made his voice heard more often and noted his criticism in symbolic terms, but he could hardly block legislation,” said Csaba Toth, strategic director of the Republikon Institute think tank. “After Schmitt, he played a dignified role.”

The 66-year-old Majtenyi, who heads the Eotvos Karoly Institute, a liberal think tank, was branded by Fidesz as “serving foreign interests” because his institute receives funding from Open Society Foundations founded by Hungarian-born U.S. billionaire George Soros.

The government has accused Soros and numerous non-governmental organizations he supports — including corruption watchdog Transparency International and the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, a human rights advocate — of trying to unduly influence Hungarian politics. Legislation targeting those and similar groups is expected to be debated in parliament within weeks.

Majtenyi criticized a wide range of Orban’s policies, including the educational, press and cultural freedoms “stolen” by Orban’s seven-year government, as well as the nationalization of the funds once belonging to private pension schemes.

“Corruption has crushed the state,” Majtenyi told lawmakers. “We would like a free and solidary Hungary. My ideal is the smallest possible state and the most possible solidarity.”

Majtenyi jokingly said he could ask parties whose leaders received support from Soros to vote for him, since Orban briefly studied at Oxford University in 1989 thanks to a Soros-backed scholarship.

Hungary’s Basic Law, or Constitution, alllows the president to serve for a maximum of two terms.

Orban will seek to win his fourth four-year term as prime minister in April 2018.</s>Parliament re-elected János Áder for another five-year term as president of Hungary. Fully 170 deputies cast their votes in the secret ballot, and all votes were valid. Áder, the candidate of Fidesz-KDNP, garnered 131 votes, while former data ombudsman László Majtényi, supported by the opposition parties save for Jobbik, had 39 votes. Áder was elected in a second round with a simple majority of votes, after the first round had been rendered inconclusive by neither candidate receiving support by two-thirds of all deputies in the 199-strong national assembly. After the vote, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán congratulated the re-elected president, who will begin his second term on May 10.

Áder was first elected president on May 2, 2012. He earlier served as house speaker and as MEP of the Fidesz party. Áder is the fifth head of state since Hungary’s transition to democracy in 1989-90. Under Hungary’s constitution, the president “embodies national unity, safeguards the democratic operation of the state structure” and serves as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of Hungary. The president can serve a maximum of two terms.</s></s>MOSCOW/BUDAPEST, Jan 14 Russian nuclear power company Rosatom will expand Hungary's only nuclear power plant, more than doubling its capacity in the biggest construction project in Hungary's post-Communist history, the two countries agreed on Tuesday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said that he and visiting Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban had signed an agreement on the project at Paks, in central Hungary, which already runs four Russian-made VVER-type reactors built in the 1980s.

The Paks expansion is expected to become a hot topic ahead of parliamentary elections in April or May when Orban will seek reelection. Opposition parties were quick to criticize the deal, with one saying it made Hungary over reliant on Russia for energy. Orban's centre-right Fidesz party has led in all polls by a wide margin.

Hungary relies on Russia for most of its gas and oil imports, and the Paks nuclear plant covers about 40 percent of its total electricity needs.

Russia's state atomic agency head Sergey Kirienko said Moscow was ready to lend Hungary up to 10 billion euros ($13.65 billion) for the construction of two new units, which will cover the lion's share of the costs.

"The agreements signed today foresee the construction of two new energy blocks at the power station," Putin was quoted as saying after talks with Orban at his residence in Novo Ogaryovo.

Janos Lazar, a leading member of Orban's cabinet, said in Budapest that the European Union had already approved a draft plan for the building the blocks, each with capacity of 1,200 megawatts (MW) at a likely cost of around 10-12 billion euros.

Lazar said 80 percent of the financing would be covered by a 30-year sovereign loan from Russia, while Hungary would have to put up the remaining 20 percent. He would not say how the plant's operator, state-owned MVM, would figure in the deal.

The new blocks are not expected to come on line before 2023 and will remain in Hungarian state ownership, Lazar said. He said the construction could add 1 percent to Hungary's economic growth per year and up to 10,000 jobs.

Orban's political opponents at home said he had decided on the future of Hungary's energy supply behind Hungarians' back.

The biggest opposition party, the Socialists, have already said if they oust Orban they will review the deal.

"The Socialist-led government after the spring elections will review the obligations undertaken by Orban, because a responsible decision about the expansion of the Paks plant can only be based on... a broad social and professional consensus," the Socialists said on Tuesday.

The green liberal opposition party LMP, which has opposed the nuclear power expansion, said Orban was selling out Hungary's sovereignty by making it dependent on Russia in energy.

"Viktor Orban practically sells Hungary out to the Russians," LMP deputy Bernadett Szel told national news agency MTI.

In 2009, before the last election, the Hungarian parliament overwhelmingly approved a plan to expand Paks.

"The main question is whether we need it now, whether we need to do it in such a rush," said Ada Amon, director of the advocacy group Energia Klub, which has opposed the Paks expansion. "This decision is too early to be made."

She said that since 2008 total energy consumption, including electricity consumption, has declined.

"We are buying nuclear fuel from Russia, we are buying natural gas from Russia, we are getting oil from Russia, so most of our energy resources are coming from Russia," she said.

Lazar argued that the expansion of the Paks plant would not make Hungary more dependent on Russia.

"I don't believe our dependence would grow," he said. "Energy security would grow. We have committed to Russian technology at least until 2037 (when the existing plant will shut down). This means sustaining that commitment, which is good for the people of Hungary and the economy."

Officials at state-owned energy group MVM, which runs the Paks nuclear plant, have said Hungary would aim to renegotiate its gas import contract with Russian supplier Gazprom soon, which is due to expire in 2015.</s>Jobbik matched its 2009 EU election results, garnering 14.7 percent of the vote, well below its performance at national elections held in April.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has often been at loggerheads with the European Union, said in a televised address to supporters that he was sending the new MEPs into battle to defend Hungary's interests in Brussels.

"Europe is our home, but Hungary is our homeland," he said.</s>The Hungarian Football Association (HFA) sacked Pinter after eight months and five matches in the job.

"Pinter did not disappoint us, he is a good coach," HFA president Sandor Csanyi told reporters.

"Dardai has a great character, has vast experience from Germany, and we believe he is capable of forging unity with the squad for the upcoming three fixtures”.

Pinter, 48, led Hungary to only one win and they started their Euro 2016 qualification campaign with a 2-1 defeat by Northern Ireland last week.

Former Hertha midfielder Dardai, a youth coordinator and trainer at Berlin, will be the interim coach until the end of the year.

"I don't want to make the headlines without results, that is for sure," Dardai, capped 61 times by Hungary, told Nemzeti Sport newspaper.

"I assume this opportunity is based on my past, my commitment for the national team. I must underline that I am an interim coach, I will not work as a regular coach, that is best for me and my family in Berlin.”

Hungary, competing in Group F with Romania, Finland, Northern Ireland, Faroe Island and Greece, have failed to qualify for a major tournament since the 1986 World Cup in Mexico.
János Áder is re-elected President of Hungary by the National Assembly.