László Toroczkai

László Toroczkai (born László Tóth,[1] March 10, 1978) is a Hungarian politician, journalist, leader of the Our Home Movement political party and mayor of Ásotthalom. He is also 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.

László Toroczkai
Mayor of Ásotthalom
Assumed office
2013
Preceded byFerenc Petró
Vice President of Jobbik
In office
2016–2018
President of Our Homeland Movement
Assumed office
23 June 2018
Personal details
Born (1978-03-10) 10 March 1978
Szeged, Hungary
Political partyMIÉP (1996–2000)
Jobbik (2016–2018)
Our Homeland Movement (2018–present)
Children3

Born in Szeged, Toroczkai studied communication at the University of Szeged. He became a nationally known political figure during the 2006 protests in Hungary and especially because of his role in the Siege of the Headquarter of Magyar Televízió, the Hungarian public television where he led the protesting crowd in Budapest from the Kossuth Square to the Liberty Square. Since 2013 he has been the mayor of Ásotthalom. It was his idea early 2015 to build a border fence on the southern border of Hungary which was later implemented as the Hungarian border barrier the same year by the Hungarian government.[2][3]

On June 8, 2018 Jobbik withdrew Toroczkai's membership and excluded him from the party. In response he established a new political movement which formed into a party called Our Home Movement.[4]

He defines himself as a national radical.

Life

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.

Between 2010–2014, he was a local representative of Csongrád County. He is the former vice president of the Jobbik party[5] and led its county list during the elections of 2010 and 2014.[6]

He resigned from the leadership of the movement in 2013 after he had elected as Mayor of Ásotthalom with 71.5% of the vote.[7] In 2014, by the regular elections he was re-elected with the total number (100%) of the vote.[8]

In 2017, Toroczkai endorsed policies to ban the promotion of pro-LGBT rights messages and Islamic religious practices in Ásotthalom, arguing that homosexuality and Islam are threats posed to the Hungarian traditions.[9]

After the 2018 Hungarian parliamentary election Toroczkai was a contender for the 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. [10]

He said the platform had plans to return to the original goals pursued by Jobbik, including to halt immigration, stop the emigration of the Hungarian youth to the wealthier western part of the EU, take a tough line on Hungary’s Roma minority and to support the ethnic Hungarian minorities in neighboring states.[10] In June 2018 Toroczkai formed a new party Our Home Movement with fellow former Jobbik MP Dóra Dúró.[11]

References
  1. Nagy Gergely Miklós: Tények és homály Toroczkai László különös pályáján: Az út Orbánig. Magyar Narancs, XXX. évf. 23. sz. (2018. jún. 7.) 14–16. o. ISSN
  2. origo.hu - Kerítést építene a határon Toroczkai - Viktória Serdült - 23 January, 2015, 13:34
  3. origo.hu - Toroczkai: Az illegális migráció ma a legnagyobb fenyegetés - Tibor Lengyel - June 9, 2015, 14:20
  4. Kizárta Toroczkait a Jobbik – Index, 2018.06.08.
  5. "JOBBIK'S VICE PRESIDENT LÁSZLÓ TOROCZKAI ON THE REFERENDUM RESULT". Retrieved 2 February 2018.
  6. "Elections in Csongrád County". valasztas.hu. Retrieved 21 October 2015.
  7. "Toroczkai László polgármester lett" (in Hungarian). Index.hu. 15 December 2013. Retrieved 16 December 2013.
  8. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2018-10-06. Retrieved 2018-07-25.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  9. "Hungarian mayor says Muslims and gay people not welcome in his village". The Independent. 2017-02-07.
  10. "Hardliners in Hungary's Jobbik demand return to far-right roots". Reuters. 2018-05-22.
  11. "Brand New Far-Right Party Emerges from the Ashes of Jobbik". Hungary Today. 2018-06-25.
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