Fidesz’s Budapest mayor candidate promises progress in the capital

“I promise that if I become mayor, this capital will see progress … and rid itself of its debilitating traffic chaos, with clean and organized public spaces awaiting us,” Alexandra Szentkirályi, the ruling Fidesz party’s candidate for mayor of Budapest, said. Szentkirályi told a press conference in City Park that in the coming days and weeks she would talk more about the capital’s affairs, her own plans for the city and work to end the coalition of incumbent mayor Gergely Karácsony and Democratic Coalition leader Ferenc Gyurcsány. She praised the government’s Liget project that has transformed City Park into a cultural venue over the past ten years. Szentkirályi noted that the developments had added more than a quarter of a million square metres of green spaces to the area, tore down 72,000sqm of paved surfaces, and added more than 500 deciduous trees, 130 pine trees, almost 70,000 shrubs and more than 700,000 perennials. “I think that every day Budapest residents visit City Park, they vote with their feet in saying that this was a good investment, a good project,” Szentkirályi said.