3 October 2016
What are we to make of the result of the recent referendum on Hungary? No matter whom you talk to, everyone seems to be claiming victory.
Before adjudicating on the competing claims, one must think clearly about what just happened.
The first thing that just happened is that those Hungarians who bothered to vote expressed their hostility to EU policy regarding enforced quotas. With in excess of 90% of those who participated in a clear expression of democracy voting against quotas, the European Commission needs to acknowledge that their move to impose solutions on reluctant member states is unworkable.
In a sense, those people who respected the democratic option to participate in national policy have won.
Yet there is a nagging doubt that even the scale of this representation will have little or no effect in Brussels. One thinks of similar votes in France, the Netherlands and Ireland where popular opinion on the development of the EU was simply ignored and voters told to vote again. One could argue that the EU does not favour popular democracy in the same way that the international ruling elite does not favour populism. It gets in the way of business as usual.
In Hungary, this position is best understood in the politics of Ferenc Gyurcsány. This is now the second popular national referendum in which his position is to oppose the process (through either not participating or defacing ballots) rather than argue the case. In both cases, his position was trounced by the democratic vote but that is a mere detail. In short, the wilderness years have not been politically kind to the former prime minister but he has clearly positioned himself to the existing liberal order in Europe along with the Brussels bureaucracy and the financial elite. It begs the question as to whom he actually represents in Hungarian politics.
Of course one could argue that Viktor Orbán was equally deflated by the result. He clearly won the argument but would certainly have preferred a larger voter turnout. Two issues therefore come to mind. Orbán, first, must be questioning the team that managed the referendum campaign – failure was clearly theirs. Second, Orbán and Fidesz will have to invest greater intellectual effort into refining and honing his position on standing up to the ‘negativity’ associated with liberal democracy and the hegemony of big states in the EU. If Orbán seeks to establish neo-Christendom in Europe (based on a different concept of the person and personal responsibility, as well as it would seem, an acknowledgement of some aspects of Catholic Social Teaching) then he has to clearly enunciate what this is and how it will manifest itself in politics.
When all is said and done, the referendum has proved to be a useful barometer of Fidesz popularity half way through its second term in office. On this basis, Orbán and his policies are popular and the opposition weak to non-existent. The continual sniping and ill-informed commentary by the western media is unlikely to shift this reality. To this he can now add the acknowledgement that his campaigning and policy development team is weak and should be subject to a shakeup and restructuring.
If Orbán is serious about changing Europe, he needs to look outside his party apparatus for answers.