Three days before Hungary goes to the polls, the centre-right opposition party Fidesz was on the defensive today over allegations that it holds a registry containing the personal details of supporters and opponents, according to dpa. Fidesz - way ahead in opinion polls with general elections to begin on Sunday - vehemently denied it had broken any laws on the handling of personal data. The party's chief of staff Peter Szijjarto dismissed such claims as a smear campaign by the party's main election rivals, the Socialists and the far-right nationalist party Jobbik. "The increasingly troubled Socialist Party and a desperate Jobbik are attempting to discredit Fidesz," Szijjarto said. In an audio recording posted on the internet the previous day, a speaker said that Fidesz held a database of the names, addresses, telephone numbers and voting preferences of tens of thousands of voters in the southern town of Pecs. The voice is alleged to be that of Fidesz director Gabor Kubatov, who referred to the 15,000 voters in the list who did not back Fidesz in a recent mayoral election town as "commies." Former European Union commissioner Laszlo Kovacs of the governing Socialist Party told reporters that the words attributed to Kubatov were reminiscent of George Orwell's novel on totalitarianism, Nineteen Eighty-Four. Kovacs said it was "not unrealistic" to imagine that the data referred to in the recording could be used in the screening of candidates for jobs or grants, or the allocation of school places or hospital beds. Socialist Party chairwoman Ildiko Lendvai said earlier that Kubatov had made a "detailed, revealing and incriminating statement" on his party's illegal data-gathering activity. Fidesz, led by former prime minister Viktor Orban. is expected to win a landslide victory in the first round of elections on Sunday, with recent opinion polls suggesting that around 60 per cent of decided voters plan to back the main opposition party. The Socialist Party has been trailing way behind with less than 20 per cent support, and most recent polls place Jobbik a few percentage points behind the Socialists. Jobbik leader Gabor Vona likened the Kubatov recording to an infamous party address in which the former Socialist prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsany acknowledged that his party had lied "night and day" to secure re-election earlier that year. The leak of what has become known as the "lies speech" in September 2006 led to rioting and, besides demolishing the Socialists' popularity and cementing support for Fidesz, also heralded a strengthening of the radical far right in Hungary.
