Conservative parties

Ljubljana – The National Assembly rejected the opposition-sponsored changes to the parental protection and family benefits act with which the Democrats (SDS) wanted to introduce a universal child benefit that would not be means tested. The government thinks this would deepen social inequalities.

"The poor state of the Polish education system is the effect of actions by all governments in power since 1989," Martynowicz tells BIRN.

"But my decision to leave the state system is caused to a large extent by what happened in the [seven] years since [Law and Justice] PiS came to power," he says.

It took only 24 hours for the Hungarian government to pass a bill that makes a simplified tax regime ineligible for hundreds of thousands of people.

The Small Taxpayers' Itemised Tax, KATA, was the most popular choice for almost 400,000 small businesses and self-employed, due to its simple administration and low tax rate.

Ljubljana – The National Assembly launched on Thursday a parliamentary inquiry into suspicions of illegal financing of “party political propaganda in the media with funds of state-owned companies, state institutions or foreign institutions or entities” targeting media owned by or linked with the SDS.

Ljubljana – The National Assembly rejected in a 52:23 vote on Tuesday the opposition Democrats'(SDS) proposal to consult voters in a referendum whether the government should restructure its departments and expand them or not.

Ljubljana – With exit polls for Sunday’s general election showing the ruling Democrats (SDS) receiving 22.5% of the vote to trail the newly-formed Freedom Movement, the first reactions from the SDS mainly refer to what it perceives as an unfair game in terms of media coverage of the campaign. The party will wait for official results to comment further.

Ljubljana – The final Mediana poll ahead of Sunday’s general election gave the Freedom Movement a 21.1% support rating, which puts it 0.6 percentage points ahead of the ruling Democrats (SDS). Things have meanwhile gotten even more crowded in the important race under way around the 4% parliamentary threshold, shows the poll, published on Friday.

Party leader Laszlo Toroczkai has called the rise of Our Homeland, from its founding four years ago to a party in parliament, "a miracle, but only the beginning."

"We want to save Hungary and restore its former glory," he said on the eve of the election.

It's the kind of glory, however, that makes many shiver.

Marki-Zay blamed government propaganda on the dominant state-run media channels for the defeat of the opposition. Orban's ruling Fidesz party argued during the campaign that the opposition would send young Hungarians to die for Ukraine and this seemed to have a huge effect on mostly undecided voters.

The leader of North Macedona's main opposition party, VMRO DPMNE, Hristijan Mickoski, joined the celebrations marking Viktor Orban's victory in Sunday's Hungarian elections at Orban's Fidesz party HQ in Budapest.