16 October 2014
Now that the dust has settled on the Hungarian municipal elections, I am reminded of the immortal opening of Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities – “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”. For Fidesz, it would seem that they just can’t stop winning elections and for the opposition, no matter how they rearrange the deckchairs of leadership, they just can’t stop losing them.
In trying to find an explanation as to why this is so, I was inclined to think of a tale of two speeches – the so-called ‘lie speech’ of Öszöd and the more recent ‘illiberal speech of Tusnád.
For many Hungarians, the Öszöd speech perfectly represented the current state of liberal democracy. Here was a Prime Minister revealing that he and his administration had lied day and night, not only to win an election but in terms of their political administration. The unrepentant tone of the speech later formed the perfect backdrop against which the global financial crisis swept over Hungary, with international banking and finance very near crippling the global economy and symbolising the association of neoliberal economics with greed, corruption, venality and ineptitude. The global elite seemed impervious to the damage caused to the fabric of global societies and advocated remedial policies which only seemed to make matters worse – both in terms of economic hardship and political dislocation.
Öszöd was also important in Hungary for what it said about the EU and the USA. Despite the political shockwaves generated by speech and the subsequent tsunami of popular dissatisfaction with the incumbent government in Budapest at the time, you could hear a pin drop in the European Commission in Brussels or the White House in Washington. No voices were raised about the dilution of democratic standards. No concern was noted at the implications of providing the EU with dubious economic data and no calls were made to sanction those in office who had unleashed very public exhibitions of police brutality. Under Öszöd and the global financial collapse, voters had been given an insight into the workings of western democracy and for many of them these were not compatible with their values.
Contrast the Öszöd speech with the recent speech of Viktor Orbán in Tusnád where he questioned the continuing validity of the liberal state in its current form and suggested that other forms of democracy might have equal validity. It is difficult to be precise as to what Orbán was actually advocating as it would seem that the concept has yet to be fleshed out. It is one thing to fly a political kite but quite another to formulate a new political vision that underpins the functioning of a modern state.
Some time later, Orbán suggested that a Christian democracy model seemed more suitable for Hungary but again the devil is in the detail and few details were forthcoming. However, his choice of Christian democracy does chime with Orbán’s political and social vision. Perhaps it is the influence of his coalition partner – the Christian Democrats – or the attractiveness of Catholic Social Teaching, which is propelling him to seek a new form of political accommodation in Hungary. It would be unwise to forget that the original founders of the European project were Christian Democrats – no matter how much the current crop of European liberal elites would like to expunge it from the record – and that the imperatives of Catholic Social Teaching such as market fairness and justice, compassion and support for the poor has resonated even in the city of London. When even the Governor of the Bank of England cites the need for a global economic system, which is fair and excludes those bankers who escaped the consequences of the damage they helped inflict since 2008 suggests that the prevailing mood of politics is changing.
Whatever else the Tusnád speech has achieved or not, it does seem to resonate with voters in Hungary. There were no riots in support of current forms of liberal democracy or popular protest at the influence of clericalism. Viktor Orbán didn’t seem to feel the need to lie about his views or make them in closed session. The proportion of voters who support liberalism remains puny. Currently, western liberalism and its values is under scrutiny as never before but this should not be seen as an assault on democracy but rather a faltering first step at identifying the core values that a democracy must uphold, some of which might not be to the liking of the current liberal elite but which are a manifestation of other value systems. It would be a mistake to see this development as political populism – as is so often the default position of political analysts and the White House. Rather the Tusnád Speech could very well be a significant realignment of political arrangements in not only Hungary but in Europe.