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László Toroczkai

The native form of this personal name is Toroczkai László. This article uses Western name order when mentioning individuals.

László Toroczkai (born 10 March 1978) is a Hungarian politician, journalist, leader of the far-right[6] Our Homeland Movement political party, and former mayor of Ásotthalom. He is also a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and vice-president of Board of the Hungarian National Group of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (2022-2026).[7] Also chairman of Hungary-Bahrain Friendship Group 2022-[8] and chairman of Hungary-Rwanda Friendship Group 2022-[9]

László Toroczkai
Toroczkai in 2024
President of Our Homeland Movement
Incumbent
Assumed office
23 June 2018
Preceded byOffice established
Mayor of Ásotthalom
In office
15 December 2013 – 27 April 2022
Preceded byFerenc Petró
Succeeded byRenáta Papp
Member of the National Assembly
Incumbent
Assumed office
2 May 2022
Personal details
Born
László Tóth

(1978-03-10) 10 March 1978 (age 46)
Szeged, Hungary
Political partyMHM (2018–present)
Other political
affiliations		MIÉP (1996–2000)
HVIM (2001–2013)
Jobbik (2016–2018)
Spouse
Toroczkai Mihaela
​
​
(m. 2009; div. 2017)​
Children3
Alma materUniversity of Szeged
Profession
  • Politician
  • journalist
WebsiteLászló Toroczkai website

He is also a founding member of the HVIM youth organization, the Hunnia national radical movement, and former Vice President of Jobbik. Between 2002 and 2013 he served as editor-in-chief of the Magyar Jelen newspaper. From 1999 to 2002 he was an editor-reporter of the Hungarian Radio.[10]

Family

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The Treaty of Trianon heavily impacted on his family. Ancestors from his mother's side were expelled from Trascău and Cluj; ancestors from his father's side were expelled from Sombor and Odžaci. As a fearful judge, one of his great-grandfathers, Gusztáv Tutsek [hu], had a major role in the aftermath of the failed Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and was widely condemned for presiding over some of the notorious show trials. It was he who convicted Mária Wittner among others. Conservative right author Anna Tutsek, who was born in Cluj-Napoca, was also his relative. In the 1930s his grandfather, László Tóth, who was from Bačka, was a gendarme and a football player. Later on, during World War II, he served in the Royal Hungarian Army. He was deployed to recapture Bačka and Northern Transylvania and then participated in fights at the Eastern front.

His great-great-grandmother, Izabella Szilágyi de Székelyföldvár, descended from Mihály Szilágyi de Vérvölgy. Mihály Szilágyi was the uncle of Mihály Szilágyi, Governor of Hungary and Captain of the Fortress during the victory at Nándorfehérvár, as well as Erzsébet Szilágyi, wife of János Hunyadi, Governor of Hungary, and the mother of King Matthias I of Hungary.[11]

László Toroczkai has 3 children. He was twice married. His second wife is from Western Moldavia, Romania. They divorced in 2017.[12]

Political career

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Born in Szeged, Toroczkai studied communication at the University of Szeged. He defines himself as a national radical.

In 2004, Toroczkai was banned from Serbia after being involved in a scuffle with a group of Serbs in the town of Palić. In 2006, the authorities of Slovakia also banned him from the country for five years because of demonstrations that he organized in front of the Slovak Ministry of Internal Affairs. He became a nationally known political figure during the 2006 protests in Hungary and especially because of his role in the siege of the headquarters of Magyar Televízió, the Hungarian public television where he led the protesting crowd in Budapest from the Kossuth Square to the Liberty Square.

Mayor of Ásotthalom (2013–present)

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Since 2013 he has been the mayor of Ásotthalom. He was elected as mayor in a by-election with 71.5% of the vote.[13] In the regularly scheduled election in 2014 he was re-elected unanimously.[14] He was re-elected with 68.42% of the vote in the 2019 local elections.[15]

In early 2015, he proposed to have a border fence built along the southern border of Hungary in order to stop illegal migration, which was later implemented as the Hungarian border barrier the same year by the Hungarian government.[16][17] During the 2015 European migrant crisis, over 10,000 Syrian and Iraqi migrants passed through the village, with only a handful of them aiming to settle there.[18] In 2017, only two Muslims were known to choose Ásotthalom as their permanent residence.[18] There are no mosque-designed structures built in the village up to date and the municipal council of Toroczkai-led Ásotthalom decided that no mosque or other religious structure could be built that would diminish the significance of the existing Catholic church.[19][18] In addition, the local government had banned the Muslim call to prayer,[20] burqa, and public displays of same-sex affection.[18][20] He endorsed policies to ban the promotion of pro-LGBT rights advertisements and Islamic religious practices in Ásotthalom, arguing that the aim was to preserve traditions of Hungary.[21] In April 2017, after a lawsuit challenging the ban's legitimacy had been filed, the Constitutional Court struck it down, ruling that it violated human rights law as it aimed to "directly limit the freedom of speech, conscience and religion".[22] However Toroczkai says that he respects all historical religions, including Islam, and he is fighting against mass migration and extreme liberalism, not against religions and traditions.[23][24]

This attitude is evidenced by the fact that he is the patron of the Hungulf Expo and Conference, which builds friendly relations with the Arab countries of the Gulf, and Toroczkai is the chairman of the Hungary-Bahrain Friendship Group.[25][26]

In June 2018, Toroczkai discussed plans with Afrikaner farmers to relocate to Ásotthalom.[27][28][29]

Party leader

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Toroczkai László a Corvin közben (4)
 
László Toroczkai speaking at Corvin köz

Between 2010 and 2014, he was a local representative of Csongrád County. He is the former vice president of the Jobbik party[30] and led its county list during the elections of 2010 and 2014.[31]

After the 2018 Hungarian parliamentary election, Toroczkai was a contender for Jobbik's presidency, but he lost to his opponent Tamás Sneider, receiving 46.2% of the vote. He later told reporters he had formed a new platform and allowed party leaders time until June 23 to integrate its ideology and policies into the party's political programmes or risk a break-up of Jobbik.[32]

 
Mi Hazánk Mozgalom frakcióvezető

He said the platform had plans to return to the original goals pursued by Jobbik, including stopping the emigration of the Hungarian youth to the wealthier western part of the EU, taking a tough line on Hungary's Roma minority, and supporting the ethnic Hungarian minorities in neighboring states.[32]

On 8 June 2018, Jobbik revoked Toroczkai's membership and expelled him from the party. In response, he established a new political movement which formed into a party called Our Homeland Movement with fellow former Jobbik MP Dóra Dúró.[33][34]

In the Parliament

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In 2022 parliamentary elections, Mi Hazank surpassed the threshold to enter parliament with 6% of the vote, winning 6 seats.

On April 27, 2022, the Our Country parliamentary group was formed, in which he was elected as the leader of the Our Country faction.[35]

On 27 January 2024, Toroczkai called for Hungary to lay claim to Ukraine's Zakarpattia Oblast, which is home to a significant Hungarian minority, in the event of a Russian victory in the invasion of Ukraine and the loss of Ukrainian statehood.[36]

References

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  1. ^ "Anti-vaccine far-right rally attracts hundreds in Hungary". Reuters. 16 January 2022. Retrieved 23 August 2024.
  2. ^ Ivaldi, Gilles (10 June 2024). "EU elections: far-right parties surge, but less than had been expected". The Conversation. Retrieved 23 August 2024.
  3. ^ Brennan, David (29 January 2024). "NATO Far Right's Plot for Ukraine Land 'Exactly What Putin Wants'". Newsweek. Retrieved 23 August 2024.
  4. ^ Makszimov, Vlad (16 March 2021). "Hungarian far-right party organises COVID-19 protest on national day". Euractiv. Retrieved 23 August 2024.
  5. ^ "Hungary ratifies Swedish NATO bid, clearing final obstacle to membership". Le Monde. 26 February 2024. Retrieved 23 August 2024.
  6. ^ [1][2][3][4][5]
  7. ^ House of the National Assembly/Hungarian National Group of the Inter-Parliamentary Union Board 2022-2026
  8. ^ House of the Hungarian National Assembly/Friendship groups of the Hungarian National Assembly 2022-2026/Hungary-Bahrain Friendship Group 2022-
  9. ^ House of the Hungarian National Assembly/Friendship groups of the Hungarian National Assembly 2022-2026/Hungary-Rwanda Friendship Group 2022-
  10. ^ parlament.hu/Hungarian Parliament - Autobiography of László Toroczkai
  11. ^ Toroczkai László: Family history
  12. ^ hunhir.info - 2017.09.08.
  13. ^ "Toroczkai László polgármester lett" (in Hungarian). Index.hu. 15 December 2013. Retrieved 16 December 2013.
  14. ^ "Evkjkv1". Archived from the original on 6 October 2018. Retrieved 25 July 2018.
  15. ^ "Ásotthalom települési választás eredményei" (in Hungarian). Nemzeti Választási Iroda. 13 October 2019. Retrieved 25 February 2020.
  16. ^ origo.hu - Kerítést építene a határon Toroczkai - Viktória Serdült - 23 January, 2015, 13:34
  17. ^ origo.hu - Toroczkai: Az illegális migráció ma a legnagyobb fenyegetés - Tibor Lengyel - June 9, 2015, 14:20
  18. ^ a b c d Borg, Matthew (7 February 2017). "Sindku f'raħal ċkejken jiddikjara "gwerra qaddisa kontra l-Islam"". newsbook (in Maltese). Malta. Archived from the original on 7 February 2017.
  19. ^ [1]
  20. ^ a b Benke, Erika (7 February 2017). "The village aiming to create a white utopia". BBC News. Retrieved 7 February 2017.
  21. ^ Bulman, May (7 February 2017). "Hungarian mayor says Muslims and gay people not welcome in his village". The Independent. Retrieved 23 December 2022.
  22. ^ Mortimer, Caroline (14 April 2017). "Hungarian court overturns village's ban on Islamic symbols and 'LGBT propaganda". The Independent. Retrieved 23 December 2022.
  23. ^ "László Toroczkai: "Orbán makes massive use of foreign labour in Hungary" | Visegrád Post". 29 June 2023.
  24. ^ "László Toroczkai : « Orbán fait massivement appel à la main d'œuvre étrangère en Hongrie » [Interview exclusive]". 9 June 2023.
  25. ^ Magyar Jelen: On November 9, 2024, the Hungulf Expo and Conference will take place in Budapest
  26. ^ House of the National Assembly - IPU Friendship Groups 2022-2026
  27. ^ Boer Delegation Visits Hungary, Project Nova Europa
  28. ^ First Boer Delegation Visits Hungarian Town, New Observer Online
  29. ^ Schaeffer, Carol (28 May 2017). "How Hungary Became A Haven For The Alt Right". The Atlantic. Retrieved 23 December 2022.
  30. ^ "JOBBIK'S VICE PRESIDENT LÁSZLÓ TOROCZKAI ON THE REFERENDUM RESULT". Retrieved 2 February 2018.
  31. ^ "Elections in Csongrád County". valasztas.hu. Retrieved 21 October 2015.
  32. ^ a b "Hardliners in Hungary's Jobbik demand return to far-right roots". Reuters. 22 May 2018.
  33. ^ "Brand New Far-Right Party Emerges from the Ashes of Jobbik". Hungary Today. 25 June 2018.
  34. ^ Kizárta Toroczkait a Jobbik – Index, 2018.06.08.
  35. ^ Megalakult a Mi Hazánk országgyűlési képviselőcsoportja - Infostart
  36. ^ "Hungarian far-right leader calls for seizure of Ukraine's Zakarpattia Oblast if Russia wins war". The Kyiv Independent. 28 January 2024.
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