Monday, March 19, 2007

How Many at the Fidesz Rally?

The Hungarian independent news agency, MTI, which is often reliable seems to have made a 'slight' error. MTI have been apparently non-critical when Fidesz made public their estimation of 200 thousand people attending their rally on Saturday, and chose to go with the right-wing party's estimation. According to Mihály Karácsony, a program organizer working at the Hungarian Ministry says that it is physically impossible for 200 thousand people to fit in the territory where the audience was. He measured that from the stage to Astoria there is 600 meters of available space, while the general width of the territory is 30 meters (18000 square meters overall). 3 to 4 people can fit on a square meter. If we consider this data then there could have been no more than maximum 50 thousand people at the political rally.

According to an online news site (privatbankar.hu), 100 thousand people attended the rally. They relied on police estimations. So how many were there at the rally? 200 thousand, 100 thousand, or only 50 thousand? Will this become a political debate similar to a case back in 2002 when Fidesz declared that over 2 million people attended their Kossuth Square rally?

In any case, a commercial news television station owned by a friend of Orbán (leader of Fidesz), Hír TV, reported that the thousands of people gathered at the event have many Hungarian National Flags with them, but few Árpád flags...
[Everyone with eyes could have seen the opposite either on TV or live: almost as much Árpád flags as Hungarian ones.]

Source: NOL (Népszabadság)

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