(Bloomberg) --
Hungarian pensioners will receive utility-bill vouchers in the mail by the end of September, two weeks before municipal elections where Prime Minister Viktor Orban is looking to prevent an increasingly united opposition from making gains.
The government will give 9,000 forint ($30) to help pensioners pay natural gas and electricity bills, Minister in Charge of the Prime Minister's Office Gergely Gulyas told reporters on Friday after a cabinet meeting, a day before the start of campaigning. The cabinet will also give an extraordinary bonus of 54,000 forint to employees on public works programs, he said.
Gulyas rejected that the payouts were linked to the Oct. 13 local ballot, saying that the government wants to spread the fruits of the fastest economic growth rate in the European Union. Parties opposed to Orban's illiberal rule are looking to overcome their fragmentation, which contributed to seven consecutive losses to the premier's Fidesz in parliamentary, municipal and European ballots in the past decade.
To contact the reporter on this story: Zoltan Simon in Budapest at zsimon@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Balazs Penz at bpenz@bloomberg.net, Andras Gergely
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