2 February 2014
As Hungarians prepare for the next general election in a few weeks time, the political temperature is rising. Already, the first salvos in what is likely to be an acrimonious campaign have been fired, although as of yet there have been few casualties.
The contours of the campaign are also yet to be seen in sharp focus but some interesting pointers suggest that the left-liberal alliance will resort to some form of ideological platform – both groupings supporting the ideal of liberal democracy and within it, economic orthodoxy. What this in fact means will, of course, never been explained to the electorate because they themselves do not know what it means.
Why this should be so is easy to explain. The party list nominations of Unity, represents the self-same politicians who were thrashed and rejected in the 2010 election and in a sense they cannot offer change but are married to more of the same. To do otherwise would mean admitting that their policies failed the last time.
Indeed, this is a union that Attila Mesterházy Attila and Gordon Bajnai claimed time and again would never happen. Time and again, both men told us that they would not join forces with former Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány. Yet, there he is. Were Mesterházy and Bajnai lying? I wouldn’t have thought so. If not, they are simply not credible as politicians.
However, more of the same is what they are offering to the electorate. There will be more austerity. There will be more accommodation with the banks, reversing the levies introduced by the Government. Utility firms will be excused their excessive profits and household utility bills will increase. The unorthodox flat rate of tax will be replaced with a more progressive system, with many taxpayers being forced to increase payments. No efforts will be spared to bring Hungary closer to the elites of the European Union.
The problems for the Left–Liberal platform is that this ‘ideological approach’ is clichéd and wearing thin on an increasingly sophisticated electorate. There is deep popular support for lowering taxes, for making the financial sector pay for their own mistakes, for lowering utility bills, which were crippling and generally preferring the unorthodox over the orthodox. Furthermore, Hungary’s economic data suggests that the government has got many things right in comparison to the economic mismanagement they inherited.
As for Fidesz, they have given up ideology. All the froth about Horthy, about statues and Hungarians abroad make headlines but they are incidental to the direction of Fidesz ideas, which are about competing values. Under Viktor Orbán, the Hungarian Government has sought to conceptualise and give meaning to what it means to be Hungarian. The efforts to buttress marriage, to support families, to work with the Churches, to stand up for a Hungarian tradition, especially within the EU and to help taxpayers and mortgage holders is but a part of this wider effort. For example, Fidesz seeks to balance the traditions of the rural population with the more cosmopolitan avenues being pursued in major cities. Their opponents have nothing to say on this.
Orbán is lucky in a sense that things are going his way. The economic crash has not only dented the vaunted supremacy of western style capitalism but also engendered disillusionment and hostility to the political and business elites. If ever there was a time to seek a new way of doing things, this is it. Yet Orbán is going further than simply calling for new ways – in fact he is asking Hungarians to think about new values, values that have to be defined and not simply by tradition, although the latter is important.
The campaign has barely begun but it seems clear that Orbán will ask the voter to test the credibility of the opposition and with it, their values. The voter will be asked to consider if the people leading the opposition are credible, if the policies they espouse are credible and if their ideology is credible. The answer to all of these questions will go a long way to determining if the opposition has any chance but if you believe the opinion polls, the answer is a definite no!