Communists Gain 1 In 5 Hungarian Votes

Northern Advocate, 2 September 1947, Page 5

Communists Gain 1 In 5 Hungarian Votes

(Received 10 a.m.) BUDAPEST, September 1. FINAL official returns in the Hungarian general elections gave the four Government parties 3,000,000 votes to the Opposition parties’ 2,000,000. Communists emerged as the largest party.

Final figures are:— Government Parties: Communists, 1,082,592; Smallholders, 757,082; Social Democrats, 732,178; Nationalist Peasant Party, 435,170. Opposition Parties: Democratic People’s Party, 805,450; Independence Party, 718,193; Independence Hungarian Democratic Party, 250,396; Hungarian Radical Party, 93,273; Christian Women’s Camp, 67.792; Citizens’ Democratic Party, 48.055. Reuters says almost 93 per cent of the total electorate voted. The Government Coalition received slightly over 60 per cent of the total votes recorded. Communists polled a fifth of the votes cast.

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 Bebreczen, plural voting had leached !such scandalous dimensions, even before 10 a.m., that, by agreement between all members of election committees, except the Communists, voting was suspended. It was decided later, with only a Communist member opposing, not to accept further “travelling voters.” The Budapest correspondent of The Times expresses the view that the elections must, from what he saw, be considered the most correct in Southeastern Europe.

It is likely that the forgery of voting and identity papers and widespread plural voting will materially affect the result and raise the question of che validity of the elections, says the Daily Telegraph’s correspondent in Budapest. Social Democrat members of the 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 passes. Another man with 20 faked cards confessed that he received similar orders from a Communist trades union leader.

He says voters who entered the booths had their papers checked first, to see that they were not among those disfranchised.

J.n the first seven booths he visited the numbers were: Total of the electorate in the seven districts, 5086; total disfranchised on the first list, 330, of whom 219 had had appeals granted; leaving 111 without a vote —a percfentage of about 2. There was no possibility of showing correspondents false lists, since representatives of all parties sat at the table together with members of trades unions, each with his list of authorised voters.

Up to 6 p.m., 150 persons in two of the 14 districts of Budapest had been charged with similar offences.

The voter then went behind a screen in another room and put a cross against the party he chose. The voting paper had no number on it, so that there was no possibility of identifying the voter, who could vote against his official party if he chose, and' no one would have been the wiser.

In countryside, adds the correspondent, 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 the more remote eastern provinces. A special train took plural voters from Bokescaba to Szeghalom.

If a man was voting outside his home area, he had to bring an authorisation with him and leave it at the booth.