Political chaos in Hungary

I wasn't sure whether I should write anything today because I can't make heads or tails out of what's going on in Hungary. Surányi says he doesn't want the job. So more scrambling. One wakes up to the name of János Takács as the newest MSZP suggestion for prime minister. I had never heard of him. He turned out to be the CEO of Electrolux Hungary. His name surfaced only to be dropped within a couple of hours: SZDSZ wants no part of János Takács. SZDSZ, although earlier its leaders emphasized that MSZP should nominate while they would simply nod or not nod, decided to come out with its own candidate, earlier the MDF candidate: Lajos Bokros.

Bokros at the beginning seemed eager enough and expressed his willingness to serve. At least that is what the Hungarian media reported. However, today the situation seems to have changed. Now Bokros says that he is not going to be part of the political machinations of MSZP. That can mean only one thing: he wants the support of the "opposition" parties: Fidesz, SZDSZ, and MDF. Well, if this is true Bokros will not be prime minister because in Orbán's opinion Hungary's future prime minister can  only be Viktor Orbán, preferably after early elections. The new spokesman of MDF, Szabolcs Kerék-Bárczy, behaved rather oddly today when Olga Kálmán inquired whether if MSZP supported Bokros's candidacy MDF would lend its name to a three-party political alliance behind its own favorite candidate, Lajos Bokros. Kerék-Bárczy refused to answer, saying that the very supposition is totally absurd. I guess that MDF is so afraid that anyone might associate the party with the left that its spokesman refuses to answer even a hypothetical question.

At the moment SZDSZ is sticking with Bokros although there are some voices (currently a minority) in the SZDSZ caucus who would be willing to support one of the MSZP suggestions. According to the latest rumors half of the MSZP nominating committee is ready to accept Bokros but the other half is dead set against him. They will meet again tomorrow morning. However, it might be irrelevant how Gyurcsány, Lendvai, and some of the others decide. The party's left wing is gathering strength: they have had enough of the "circus" of the whole nominating process and are planning to overthrow Ferenc Gyurcsány. According to Tamás Suchman, one of the heavyweights in this group, because Gyurcsány already announced his intention to resign he shouldn't be conducting the negotiations about his successor. Instead his deputy, the minister in charge of the prime minister's office, Péter Kiss, should assume his place at the negotiating table. Moreover, Suchman continued, he is going to make a motion to convene an extraordinary congress to elect a new party chairman. A left-wing putsch against Gyurcsány is brewing. Katalin Szili, Gyurcsány's rival in the party and the head of its left wing, somewhat more obliquely spoke of the party's duty to stop the "drift of the country" and urged that the party should take "political responsibility." I guess that means that Szili, Suchman, and others are ready to get rid of Gyurcsány both as prime minister and party chief and alone shoulder the responsibility of governing. But how?

Given the intra-party revolt, MSZP and SZDSZ should move quickly to decide on a mutually satisfactory  candidate. A rational human being would think that the survival instinct of these two parties would kick in and dictate cooperation. However, we are in Eastern Europe. In fact, very close to an area called the Balkans. In that area rational political thinking doesn't always have the upper hand. Cooperation? They don't know the meaning of the word. Western businessmen often complain that Hungarians are not good at team work. They are not joking! These two parties should have learned a lesson from the fiasco four years ago; because of their refusal to cooperate, although they had a majority in parliament, the country ended up with László Sólyom as president. The same left wing of MSZP was certain that their candidate, Katalin Szili, would win despite SZDSZ's refusal to support her. Well, it didn't work out that way. Both parties were at fault then and both are behaving the same way now.

I consider Gyurcsány a talented politician, but at the moment he is in a very difficult situation. The candidate both parties supported wouldn't accept the job. So now names come, names go, and tempers flare. His party's left wing wants to unseat him and undermine him at every turn. Meanwhile Viktor Orbán calls any prospective candidate a "clown" (paprikajancsi in Hungarian) because a "serious" candidate simply wouldn't take the job. Meanwhile the Hungarian Guard is planning to blockade roads to force early elections.

I'm downbeat today and I recall "Gloomy Sunday," the Hungarian "suicide anthem." Why would political parties in effect commit suicide? According to the Hungarian psychiatrist Bela Buda, Hungarians regard suicide differently from most other people. "In the unconscious popular mind suicide is a positive pattern of problem solution, it's a formula which is actualised in times of crisis because everybody has experiences with other persons who committed suicide and who were regarded not as failures but as brave people daring to restore their self-esteem and dignity by this desperate and heroic act." Is it heroic to turn over the reins of government to Fidesz?  I think not. So MSZP and SZDSZ had best come up with another solution to the problem of national governance.

Comments

[Sandor]

Ah, yes! The spiral of history has turned an other full circle.
You may consider it an other flight of circular steps up, or down, as your taste dictates, but a full circle it is, no doubt.
The situation is eerily similar to the one after the first world war. The government in total disarray and nobody is ready, or able to take the reins. And while the democratic pretender, Karolyi is desperately running from pillar to post, while the radical enemy gleefully watches as the power is dropping into their lap in spectacular, cinematic slow motion, (that has not been invented yet), and the hapless "annointed" is loosing their grip, finger by finger.
All mouths agape, all is engaged in patriotic oratory, they all tell what must be done, but none of them does anything: they are actually paralyzed by impotence and fear.
A heroic era has came to its end. There are no bangs, only whimpers.
But the macabre "enemy" is not any better.
The nationalist pretender, with a clipped and unmistakably fiendish grin frozen to his face, triumphantly looks down (actually up, since all of them are taller then him), upon his parrot commando " well dudes, didn't I tell you? Didn't I?"
What actually happens now is not subject to the familiar rules of human behaviour. There is no instinct of self-preservation at work in the group. It has been taken over by the self-preservation of the individuals. All of them flawed and all of them tainted one way or an other. (We must remember in addition to that they are also Hungarians that certainly doesn't help.) And most of all, they are in panic.
That includes Orban too.
He has no idea what he should do. There are different possible scenarios, any one of them may happen and he is equally unprepared for all of them. He is totally alone. His advisers are shit, he has no credible political, or personal background and the only thing he can count on is the populist-nationalist hysteria he has managed to whip up over the years. His stalwart comrades are mostly gone, the leftovers are worthless apparatchics and carrier rebel-rousers. Not the ideal personnel to run a country, even in the best of times and those times are long gone.
And yet, I am unable to turn off all sympathy. Also, I have this nagging suspicion, that Gyurcsany, whom I thought to be a master politician, may only be taking his just revenge on this sorry lot of losers, saying: here, take this lovely piece of burning lump of coal that you prevented me to handle, hold it as tight as you said you would, and run with it! Let's see how far you get! And once you had your run, you know where to find me.

[damdamdam]

Yeah, of course, to Gyurcsány the most important thing still is to solve the country's problems.

Of course this is just about revenge, what else? After all, he was right all along, wasn't he? The poor bastards will really-really suffer without him now..

Some people will never see from their own eyes...

[Mark]

"Given the intra-party revolt, MSZP and SZDSZ should move quickly to decide on a mutually satisfactory candidate. A rational human being would think that the survival instinct of these two parties would kick in and dictate cooperation."

But the problem here is that neither party has a rational way of ensuring their survival. That is why this is such a mess.

To win the elections, or to have even a fighting chance, the MSZP need to raise the living standards of the population dramatically. Even then they have to explain away Őszöd, why they imposed an austerity programme on the population in 2006 which ended up ditched in 2008 after they played for a draw in three referenda, and a number of other things that would strain credibility (and I doubt they can do this). They can't improve people's living standards, and all they can really hope to do is manage the decline in living standards. And in the meantime the MSZP-left have been living in a dreamworld, whereby if only Gyurcsány and those horrid liberals around him would go away, then they could return to the world of distributing the goodies to the population to increase their popularity. This illusion is in tatters, and they have realized that lots of them with lose their seats; they don't have the base in local government to fall back on they did in 1998, and a vengeful Viktor Orbán is ready on taking power to review the contracts that have been issued to their friends, and take away the money that funds their foundations so they are running around like headless chickens.

The problem for the SZDSZ is that they are no longer a party of intellectuals, but depend to get into parliament on the votes of wealthy voters who tend to live in capital, who want low taxes and a small state. Their future survival is dependent on carving out a nice as being an economically liberal party like Germany's FDP. The problem is that while the FDP's natural partners in Germany are on the right, for cultural reasons (basically anti-Semitism) the right in Hungary will never work with them. They are therefore tied to the MSZP, whose interests lie in the pursuit of economic policies diametrically opposed to those of the SZDSZ. Aware of the problem, along has come the MDF to exploit it by seeking to take the SZDSZ's base away from it, threatening its survival. It is absolutely no wonder that the poor SZDSZ parliamentary party is split three ways and has no idea of what to do. They are damned if they accept a candidate acceptable to the MSZP, but can't impose their own to create an alternative parliamentary majority.

It is, as someone who has a deep committment to left-wing values, with great regret that I have to say this, but the game is up for Hungary's liberal-left in its current form. We are going to have early elections. The SZDSZ will disappear - unless some of its candidates have the good sense to seek refuge on the MSZP's list. The MSZP, with probably Gráf at its head, will go into these elections and win between 15-20%. It looks to me as if we ought to start preparing for the Fourth Republic then. Maybe then those who supported the liberal-left can start to think about how they got everything so dreafully wrong.

[Odin's lost eye]

With a constructive vote of no confidence what will happen if NO one is found acceptable to succeed as PM? What happens then if there is a Negative vote? Does Gyurcsány stay on?

[Eva S. Balogh]

Odin: " What happens then if there is a Negative vote? Does Gyurcsány stay on?"

There is still total chaos. The latest rumor is that Gyurcsány will resign even from his post at the head of MSZP and someone else will take over. The socialists are trying to remain in power with a different prime minister, perhaps Péter Kiss! Good luck!! If this is true there must be elections held soon.

[Mark]

Odin's lost eye: "With a constructive vote of no confidence what will happen if NO one is found acceptable to succeed as PM? What happens then if there is a Negative vote? Does Gyurcsány stay on?"

Yes - if a constructive vote of no confidence fails then the current incumbent remains in post. He can then decide to resign, but that places the decision of what happens next in the hands of the President of the Republic.

[New World Order]

Eva

Yesterday, early elections from your vantage was the worst possible outcome. Now that Gyurcsany's ploy has come back to bite him, and all he has done in resigning is started the early the disintegration of the MSZP, you are now for elections?
The truth is the MSZP is self immolating, but this is a good thing. It will get trounced in this election, and then have to decide what type of Party it really is. They will in all likelihood choose to be a real left wing party. On the right, MDF is also self destructing and SzDSz will be voted out of Government having already ceded all credibility. The best hope for the country is that from the cadavour of the MSZP, SzDSz and MDF some sort of real centerist, pro-market force would emerge under a new generation of leaders. Guys like Bajnai will not remain in MSZP that is dominated by Kiss and Szili. The senior leadership of SzDSZ (Demsky et. al.) and MDF are also finished for all practical purposes. Being completely out of power makes it hard to sustain the corruption. There must also be somewhere sensible liberal/free market people currently on the fringes of these parties. They need to spend the next couple of years of FIDESZ rule regrouping and be ready to emerge when FIDESZ starts to get ripped apart by its own contradictions in a couple of years time. BTW, my guess a FIDESZ governemt would consist of fairly traditional, conservative types in senior economic/finance positions. They will carry the water while Orban will remain above that as the Populist in chief.

In the meantime, let us all sit back and enjoy watching (in a rubber necking sort of way)Mr. Orban address the problems he has in front of him. By 23 October 2010, Hungary will either be bankrupt or FIDESZ will have continued down the path of IMF austerity. The problems will be his. Let us not forget, that while his popularity is high now, he is not a universaly popular figure in this country. There will be nothing like a year in office to bring him way back to earth.

[Mark]

NWO: "The truth is the MSZP is self immolating, but this is a good thing. It will get trounced in this election, and then have to decide what type of Party it really is. They will in all likelihood choose to be a real left wing party."

One really wonders how the MSZP will cope with implosion. NWO talks about the MSZP becoming "a real left wing party". I think the real problem I have with this is that the phrase MSZP left is actually quite misleading. I understand left-wing values to be about the extension of democracy from the political and legal into the economic and social realms, and the creation of an social and economic order that rests on the recognition of the fundamentally equal worth of every human being. I have to ask the question of who stands for this in the MSZP? And who is advancing a viable political programme informed by these values in Hungary?

The answer really is nobody. When I've asked those who support Kiss and Szili and co. what they would like to see done differently, I don't really get an answer. A few tell me that the MSZP allowed itself to be seduced by the liberals into believing that capitalism was an answer, when in reality Hungary had always been a peripheral country, and it would all end in national-populism! In other words what they stand for is a kind of vague neo-Kádárism, which is bereft of any kind of remotely realistic economic strategy, or indeed a any meaningful vision of Hungary's future.

The problem of the party's left is just a variant of the fundamental difficulty for the party as a whole. It has really failed to articulate a proper social democratic vision of the transformation to a market economy. Instead it has oscillated between neo-liberalism and paternalist statism. One wing has advocated technocratic-liberal economic policies which have run up against objections from the party's base and the protest of its natural supporters in Hungary's post-industrial communities. The other has then stepped in with sticking plaster measures to defuse the discontent. The contradictions of this form of behaviour have been painfully exposed by this crisis.

What happens next? NWO suggests a realignment of Hungarian politics on Polish lines, and while this is possible, we should also be aware of the differences between the two countries. Poland's liberals never joined the post-Communist SLD in government, and therefore we available as a pole around which anti-nationalist forces could realign. This isn't the case in Hungary. Secondly, while the MSZP faces a nasty defeat, it will be less nasty than that in 1990, from which they came back four years later.

[Odin's lost eye]

The general election when the ever it comes will almost certainly result in a crushing defeat for all the parliamentary parties except Fidesz. Whilst more important economic ministries would probably go to persons of financial sense and knowledge the remainder of the party will be preoccupied with ensuring that their leader Orbán will take over or position from which cannot be displaced by popular vote and be granted a massive power. There will obviously have to be several manipulations like replacing the members of the constitutional court before this can be done. Initially he will be supported by the far-right whom he will probably use it as his storm troopers giving them free rein to punish those who have dared to keep him out of power. Once he has acquired the position of ‘All Highest’ he can use this to threaten to disrupt the European Union should play complain about undemocratic government etc. And as he becomes more entrenched in power he will probably rid himself and his party of the more moderate members and shifting his party further towards a ditatorship. He may well get slapped about by the European Audit Commission will want to know why European funds are going to. The opposition parties that is the rump of MZSP, SZDS and MDF (and anyone else who sticks their head above the parapet) will be starved of funds, their volunteers slapped about, bank accounts frozen etc. From what I have read in this and other blogs Fidez wish to be in power for a minimum of 20 years. This will probably mean a lot of unpleasantness and the use of strong arm stuff. Eventually I foresee that Hungary will either be forced out of Europe and become a European Zimbabwe or it will degenerate into a sort of feudal state.

[Mark]

Odin: "Orbán will take over or position from which cannot be displaced by popular vote and be granted a massive power."

This is absolutely possible, and it is very likely that he will try to do this. My guess is he will seek to use the precedent of De Gaulle to do this. But that parallel is not reassuring for FIDESZ. Though De Gaulle faced a weak opposition the one direct election he won as President (in 1965), he only won by a 55-45% margin over the left-wing candidate and later President, Francois Mitterand. And the chain of events that led to his resignation in 1969 started when he had to make concessions to the general strike and associated student protests in May 1968. In other words, if he curtails parliament and concentrates power in an executive presidency, discontent will not disappear with it - it will just build up until it explodes in open street protest.

France in the 1960s witnessed economic growth unprecedented before and since, and the country's transformation into a consumer society. These were favourable economic circumstances, and those that a new Orbán government will confront in Hungary could not be more different. When FIDESZ voters realize that all their government can offer them are reduced living standards, all those FIDESZ local authorities see that the government has no scope to rescind their debts, and there just isn't enough money to pay off all the supporters, the wheels will start coming off. I'm sure they do want to be in power for twenty years (if not more), but wanting something and being able to realize it are not the same thing.

[spectator]

Interesting question, all along.

Who's next?

Unfortunately: there is no choice...

Well , I agree wit Eva, Mr. Kiss is the most suitable - after all, what Hungary needs today is a proper bureaucrat, who does what required, and does it well, without too much party- or ideological attachment...

However, he isn't a "leader" - so to speak.
As Mr. Gyurcsany has stepped aside, there is nobody in sight to take the lead.

Yes, I know of mr. Orban.

Unfortunately.
Just today I have read of his speech in Ungvar, Ukraine.

Mr. Orban declared, that if he going to rule in Hungary, he would provide the ukrainians with double citizenship.

Well, it certainly sounds as a promise, isn't it?

- With a slight blemish, as it is: in Ukraine there is NO such thing accepted as double citizenship.

Hmm....

Then, just like two question emerges:
- Mr. Orban has no the slightest clue, how the Ukrainian law does work, regarding citizenship, even if he - allegedly - doctor jurist, which makes him in this case, well, not really up to the professional standards, let alone, be a prime minister of Hungary...
- Mr, Orban indeed know, that there is no such thing in Ukraine as double citizenship, but he decided to fool his public with this promise.

- Which one you like better???

- Me neither of...

- So, here we are: nobody in sight, who really could take over!

At least that's what I think.
- And I very well can be wrong.
- And I very well wish, that I will be..!

/

[Eva S. Balogh]

Spectator:"Just today I have read of his speech in Ungvar, Ukraine.

Mr. Orban declared, that if he going to rule in Hungary, he would provide the ukrainians with double citizenship.

Well, it certainly sounds as a promise, isn't it?

- With a slight blemish, as it is: in Ukraine there is NO such thing accepted as double citizenship."

Well, Mr. Orbán never lies--as we know so well.

The negotiatons are still going on. SZDSZ's behavior is beyond description. However, they have only one more hour to ponder because Gordon Bajnai gave a deadline of midnight. Right now it is 22:49 in Budapest.

[Sandor]

In the meantime Bajnai was accepted by SzDSz.
He started out well i.e. tough. He also requested that the two parties now supporting him undertake in writing that support. I don't know how he could enforce such commitment, but at least initially perhaps it may work.

[NWO]

Mark:

My sense of what "left-wing" would mean in the context of Hungary and the MSZP is a party singulalrly committed to extensive State involvement in the economy (perhaps even with a certain return to State ownership in key industries), and a substantial welfare state that provides minimum incomes for a large percentage of the population via transfer payments. [Sounds a lot like Kadarism fuelled by EU money] I do not associate left wing in this context with either greater liberty, freedom or more democracy. Just the opposite in fact.
My wish would be for something to develop in Hungary along the line of what has happened in Poland, where a "sensible" conservative identity has been forged btween the traditional, old-style left and the populist, Catholic right. I am not particularly sanguine that such will emerge, but it would make me happy.
Does Orban believe in democracy? I do not know. Do I think he will try to implement measures that fundamentally abrogate democracy? I don't think so. I continue to believe the allure of EU membership for the population as a whole remains too strong to allow Hungary to go down such a path (regardless of the menatality of the PM). Don't forget. To buy off the population and his own Party he need a lot of cash. The country has ZERO. The EU has a lot. He can't turn the spigot off now. Furthermore, it is the FIDESZ voter who has the Swiss Franc loan. A collapse of the currency hurts Orban's constituency also. In the end, see Italy and current day Italian politics. The rule of law is certainly compromised. Democracy is much weaker as an institution than it should be, but the country remains democratic and within the EU. This I imagine is the vision of Orban (n.b.-He would also like to see Hungarian football rise to the level of Italian football but this is not happening soon). Is that something to look forward to? No. Is it Zimbabwe or Belarus? Of course not. It is not even Bulgaria or Russia which remain to a large extent criminal states.

[Mark]

Sándor: "In the meantime Bajnai was accepted by SzDSz."

You need to wait and see how many fail to support the constructive motion of no confidence - and how many of the dissidents like Karsai in the MSZP join them. And then, if he gets through how far he can rely on parliament to vote through his measures. And lastly, the question is raised in the face of the inevitable street protests of how long - given its legitimacy problem - it can survive.

[Mark]

NWO: "In the end, see Italy and current day Italian politics."

As I've said before I think there is much merit in seeing Hungary as a poorer and smaller version of Italy, in terms of its social relations and the nature of the state. The real issue though is that Hungary is poorer - OK, the Mezzogiorno has problems of a magnitude that are similar to CEE, but it can be supported by productive regions in northern and central Italy (though as the presence of the Lega Nord and the pressure towards federalism shows, this is not without strains). The productive sector is simply not big or strong enough to provide the support for the level of redistribution that large sections of the population would accept (this is why what NWO rather nicely calls "Kádárism with EU money" is not a viable way out - in fact it was already tried by Medgyessy, and look what happened to him!)

I've heard historian Paul Ginsborg argue that Italy is - by its nature - "a centre-right country". What I think he means is that support for a market economy underpinned by political Catholicism and anti-Communism is absolutely hegemonic (centre-left governments have been brief and very weak simply punctuating long periods of right-wing hegemony). This isn't the case in Hungary - all of the surveys we have show that the population had deeply collectivist attitudes that put them firmly up there with Scandinavia on economic and social questions. Anti-Communism is divisive to say the least, and political Catholicism is a minority interest.