Election Abuses Are Alleged In Hungary: Communist Tactics

Greymouth Evening Star, 2 September 1947, Page 7

Election Abuses Are Alleged In Hungary: Communist Tactics

(Recd. 10.25 a.m.) BUDAPEST, September 1. All the Social Democratic Ministers in Hungary’s Coalition Government have decided to resign following the charges of systematic electoral abuses in the election.

This action came after the Social Democrat Minister of Justice, Mr Istvan Riess, resigned during an all-night meeting because the police had obstructed investigators he had sent out to examine reports of plural voting. The Hungarian Independence Party has decided to petition for a declaration that the election was invalid on the ground that the result was influenced by electoral abuses.

Reuter’s correspondent says that, although it is too early to assess the extent of abuses, a study of reports from British and American observers in all parts of Hungary indicated:—

1. The secret ballot was strictly observed. 2. There was no intimidation of voters in or near polling booths. 3. There was no doubt that organised abuses in the form of “flying voters” occurred in many districts. 4. The overwhelming majority of t)iese plural voters were Communists.

5. The.blue cards which the Communists used were original forms. Half a million blue forms were printed. Two hundred thousand were distributed legally, and 280,000 disappeared. It seems clear that disfranchisement was necessary to make way for flying voters, so that the total number of votes cast should net exceed the total number of voters.

According to British and American reports, election committees in several districts asked the Minister of the Interior for permission not to allow flying voters to vote until after 7 p.m. in case they were left with no voting papers for their local voters. In every case they were ordered by the Ministry to allow “blue card” voters to vote. Official Returns The final official returns in the elections gave the four Government parties 3,000,000 votes to the Opposition parties 2,000,000 votes. The Communists emerged as the largest party. The final figures are: — Government Parties

Communists . . . . 1,082,592 Smallholders . . . . 757,082 Social Democrats . . 732,178 Nationalist Peasant Pty. 435,170 Opposition Parties Democratic People’s Pty. 805,450 Independence Party 718,193 Independence Hungarian Democratic Pty. 256,396 Hungarian Radical Pty. 93,273 Christian Women’s Camp 67,792 Citizen’s Democratic Pty. 48,055 Reuters sayq that almost 93 per cent, of the total electorate voted. The Government Coalition received slightly over 60 per cent, of the total votes recorded. The Communists polled one-fifth of the votes cast. ' “It is likely that forgery ,of voting and identity papers and widespread plural voting will materially affect the

result, and raise the question of the validity of the elections,” . says the Daily Telegraph’s Budapest correspondent. Forgery and Plural Voting “Social Democrat members of electoral committees in Budapest found a Communist who admitted that he had received £3 from the Communist Party to vote with forged absentee voting cards. He had 17 of these. Another man with 20 faked cards confessed that he had received similar orders from a Communist trade union leader. To 6 p.m. 150 persons in two of Budapest’s voting districts had been charged with .similar offences. “In the countryside, voters were transferred by car and lorry and even by special train from district to district. More than 1000 plural voters arrived in cars, lorries, and. buses at Szekesfehervar.

“Similar irregularities are reported in more remote eastern provinces. A special train took plural voters from Bekescaba to Szekhalom. A police lieutenant who arrested two plural voters in Oraszava and took them to a neighbouring town was himself arrested by the local Communist Public Prosecutor, and the persons charged were promptly freed. “In Debreczen, plural voting reached such scandalous dimensions before 10 a.m. that, by agreement among all members of the election committee except the Communist, voting was suspended. It was decided later, with the Communist member opposing, not to accept further ‘travelling voters.’ ” Conditions in Budapest

The Budapest correspondent of The Times expressing the view that the elections must from what he saw, be considered the most correct in southeastern Europe, says that when voters entered the booths they had their papers checked first to see that they were not among those disenfranchised. In the first seven booths that he visited the numbers were: Total electorate in the seven districts, 5086; total disenfranchised on the first list, 330, of whom 219 had had their appeals granted, leaving 111 without a vote—a percentage of about 2. “There was no possibility of showing correspondents false lists,” he adds. “The voter then went behind a screen in anothei’ room, and put a cross against the party he chose. The voting paper had no number on it, so there was no possibility of identifying the voter, who could vote against his official party if he chose and no one would be the wiser. The voting slip was then put in an envelope and deposited in a box. ■ _