Letters to Hungary
1 November 2013
The political opposition in Hungary is dead in the water. Despite having over three years to regroup after the disastrous election result of 2010, it has singularly failed to do so.
3 september 2013
In recent days, the Socialists and the recently manufactured party of former Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai have cobbled together an electoral pact of sorts. Agreement has been reached on the division of seats available to each for contesting in the next election and agreement on mutual support, where appropriate.
30 January 2013
The damaging split in the LMP has punctured their much-vaunted image and slogan ‘politics can be different’. In fact the political rupture in the LMP resulting from the incompatibility of the positions of senior party members Schiffer and Jávor simply demonstrates that the LMP leadership was no better and quite evidently worse than the average Hungarian politician.
15 January 2013
Until the next election in 2014, Hungarian politics, at least superficially, will look the same as before. The opposition will seek to reverse their decline and reintroduce their particular form of government, although it is unlikely that the shape of their policies will be known for some time, if at all.
16 August 2012
Hungary woke up this morning to the news that Gordon Bajnai’s own Foundation has completed a study on how to win the next election. Would it have reported it was not possible? I don’t think so. That is not the kind of objectivity you get when you buy your own think tank. However, it will be interesting to see how the Hungarian media reacts to this report and more importantly, how it will perceive this in the light of Mr. Bajnai’s political ambitions.
6 October 2011
Pope Benedict’s recent speech in the German Parliament was another reminder to European politicians that secularism and the absence of God from the ‘public space’ carries with it a real risk of further damaging the fabric of an already damaged European society.
28 June 2011
Since January 2011, the Hungarian government has been criticized for a number of political initiatives, ranging from the introduction of a new media law – which had the European Union up in arms – to the introduction of a new constitution, which has irked the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission.
6 April 2011
Perhaps it was not surprising that the LMP found Daniel Cohen-Bendit. After all, being a party of protest is no fun in a parliament where the recently-elected government has a super-majority and intent on using it. So what does a liberal-Green party do when it struggles to be heard in the domestic politic arena? Of course you bring in a foreigner!