Hungary’s parliament voted in a former skinhead Tuesday [6 May 2014] as its deputy speaker in the first session since an election last month saw the far-right Jobbik party make significant gains.<\/p>\n
Tamas Sneider, a member of Jobbik and leader of a skinhead group in northern Hungary in the early 1990s, was approved as one of six deputy presidents in one of the first votes by the new parliament.<\/p>\n
“As we all know about my past, I’d rather speak about (my plans for) the future,” Sneider, who was given a suspended sentence in 1992 for beating a member of Hungary’s largest ethnic minority the Roma, told a press conference after the vote.<\/p>\n
Some 150 deputies of the 199-seat house voted in favour of Sneider’s appointment, including most of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s ruling right-wing Fidesz party who hold 133 seats.<\/p>\n
The new parliament was meeting for the first time since the April 6 election returned Fidesz to power for a second consecutive term in government with a two-thirds majority.<\/p>\n
Jobbik, whose deputies have often made anti-Roma statements, won 21 percent of the vote – up from 17 percent in 2010 – and hold 23 seats in the new parliament.<\/p>\n
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