11 January 2013
Under the headline, ‘A Blow for Viktor Orban’, the Economist (10 January 2013 print edition) reported that a series of recent events has demonstrated that support for Viktor Orbán seems to be diminishing. It cited the Hungarian Constitutional Court’s ruling against the government on Electoral Registration, the recent student protests on student fees, an opinion poll and an inflammatory article by a political associate of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
By and large, such pithy pieces are what you get from a magazine, which has never been overly enamoured with the ruling party in Budapest or its leader. However, one can reasonably expect more of a prestigious international magazine than what we got here. Absent was any analysis. Absent was any attempt at equal-handedness. In short, absent was professional journalism.
Let’s look at each issue in turn. The ruling of the Constitutional Court was a blow to Fidesz but could the acceptance of it not reflect Orbán’s democratic credentials as much as his weakness? Even a liberal political analyst was quoted as saying that this represented a victory for democratic checks and balances, something the Economist would have you believe has been absent in Hungary since the ruling party’s landslide election victory in 2010. While on that point, was the Economist only able to source a liberal political analyst for comment? Surely that is one-sided?
Regarding the student protests, it was cheap of The Economist to draw similarities between the origins of Orbán’s political rise as a leader of student protests against communism in the 1980s and the student protests of today. Is the Economist really asking us to believe that there is any real similarity here? For the magazine, the Hungarian Prime Minister’s willingness to negotiate is another sign of weakness, not in any way a form of negotiation and compromise. I would have been more interested if The Economist would have informed the reader where other political parties in Hungary stand on this issue or better still, asked the students what they thought of the positions of other political parties on student fees. Perhaps The Economist could have compared Viktor Orbán’s handling of the student fee issue and the that of Nick Clegg?
A mid-term opinion poll, which still shows Fidesz the most popular political party in Hungary, is evidence of waning popularity according to The Economist. Of course it is.
Finally, The Economist cited an inflammatory article by Zsolt Bayer, an Orbán associate, on the Roma question in Hungary, the fallout of which, would have to be managed by the Hungarian Prime Minister. The personal opinion of a private person was somehow linked to the government. Evidently the swift and fulsome condemnation by the Deputy Prime Minister was not enough, reckoned the Economist. However, as anyone familiar with Hungary will know, such sentiments as those expressed by Bayer are hardly new and tap into a latent and general hostility to Roma in Hungarian society, irrespective of political affiliations. This little exercise in guilt by association and petty insinuation is not worthy of The Economist.