Fidesz

Marki-Zay, or MZP as he's known more colloquially, was polling so poorly before the first round of the primaries on September 18-28 that it seemed highly unlikely he would be among the top three candidates to make it through to the second and final round held on October 10-16. But then he did, with only 21 per cent of the vote.

Peter Marki-Zay, the conservative mayor of Hodmezovasarhely and leader of the joint opposition. Photo: Facebook

Peter Marki-Zay, the mayor of Hodmezovasarhely, speaks at an anti-government protest in downtown Budapest, Hungary, 01 May 2018. EPA-EFE/ZOLTAN BALOGH The candidates

Closer to home, 40 kilometres west of Budapest, Orban fulfilled a personal dream to build a stadium in Felcsut, the small village of 1,700 people where he grew up. Together with his close ally and mayor of Felcsut, Lorinc Meszaros, the two managed to have a stadium with a capacity of 3,800 built in 2014 for the Puskas Academy team at a cost of 10 million euros.

About 90 of the Index journalists resigned en masse following the sacking of editor-in-chief Szabolcs Dull. In the lead-up to his dismissal, Dull had been warning that the independence of the editorial team was in danger and he moved the "freedom barometer" on the homepage of Index to "in danger".

Critics counter that the questions are mostly irrelevant, as no school organises sex education for children without the consent of parents and gender reassignment is not legally possible under the age of 18, and even for those older has been made extremely difficult.

Direkt36 journalists Szabolcs Panyi and Andras Szabo. Photo: courtesy of Andras Pethő

This is already the second time that the Commission has indicated Hungary's submitted plans do not meet the strict requirements to access the funds.

Ljubljana – The Slovenian government is overseeing an increasingly systematic effort to undermine critical media, a coalition of press freedom organisations and journalism groups warned in a report released on Wednesday after conducting a virtual fact-finding mission to Slovenia in late May and early June.

"I was a village boy, coming from the heartland, where people worked and struggled to survive. Like my parents. And it is here where I learnt to love and appreciate this land," he declared in a somewhat amateurish Facebook video.