The gloom is palpable. The greatest disappointment is in SZDSZ. Gábor Fodor, who usually is optimistic and rosy-cheeked, looked positively sick on election night. Tamás Bauer, one of the founders of the party, gave an interview tonight on József Orosz's Kontra (KlubRádió) that sounded more like an elegy. He wasn't surprised at what most people think is the end of the Hungarian liberal party. He was only very, very sad. Bauer said that the handwriting had been on the wall for at least fifteen years, but the absolutely erratic political moves of the last three years that practically no one could follow really did them in. As Bauer said, the supporters of SZDSZ fell out of love. MSZP is obviously in big trouble. After all, it barely surpassed Jobbik at the polls. MSZP received 502,607 votes while Jobbik got 427,213. And Fidesz isn't sitting on its laurels. It is true that it received 56.37% of the votes, but it managed to mobilize only 1,630,482 voters. It didn't seem to matter that Fidesz tried to convince people that this election was all-important because if Fidesz wins big the government will fall. Orbán had said that too many times before and nothing happened. It didn't seem to matter that every poster told them that it was "Enough!" and urged them to go and vote; only about half of Fidesz supporters did so. The other reason for the disappointment must be that the main thrust of Viktor Orbán's strategy, criticized by many earlier, failed spectacularly on June 7. The slogan was "One camp, one flag." That meant an absolutely unified right represented by Fidesz alone. It turned out that the right is anything but unified. Orbán tried his darndest to incorporate the moderate, conservative MDF and wanted to be the representative of the extreme right as well. It didn't work. MDF is hanging in there and, although MIÉP is only a shadow of its former self, there is the "new force" as Jobbik calls itself.
And now let's take a look at the actual breakdown of the election results. In order to make it a little easier I attached a map of Hungary that shows the counties. Jobbik did best in the northeastern corner of the country: in Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén (22.88%), Szabolcs-Szatmár (18.49%), Hajdú-Bihar (18.68%), Nógrád (18.68%), and Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok (19.02%). Most analysts claim that the reason for Jobbik's success in this region is the high concentration of Romas in these counties. However, in Baranya where there are also a lot of Gypsies Jobbik didn't do well at all (10.7%). I couldn't find detailed breakdowns of voter turnout, but in the poor counties of the northeast participation is usually very low, so this may have pumped up Jobbik returns. Fidesz, as usual, did very well in the westernmost counties: Győr-Moson-Sopron, Vas, Zala, Tolna and Bács-Kiskun, the only county lying east of the Danube. All others are situated in Transdanubia. To clarify further, I'm reproducing a series of maps of the spread broken down by parties.
Those who claim that Jobbik took votes from MSZP base their assertion on the results of the 2006 elections. MSZP was strong in the eastern counties while Fidesz triumphed in counties close to the Austrian border. They point to the fact that in the EU elections Jobbik did worse in Fidesz territories than in the country as a whole. However, there is a fairly powerful argument advanced by Zoltán Somogyi (Political Capital) which makes sense to me. Pollsters were wrong about the chances of Jobbik and Fidesz. But they were spot on for some time before the elections about the MSZP numbers. They steadfastly maintained that the party would send no more than four representatives to Brussels. At the same time they predicted sixteen or seventeen seats for Fidesz. Jobbik would get one, at most two. Since their predictions for MSZP turned out to be accurate, most of the Jobbik votes must have come from Fidesz. Of course, neither Somogyi nor I claim that no former MSZP supporter voted for Jobbik on Sunday, but I think that by and large Jobbik's gain was Fidesz's loss.
Although Viktor Orbán allegedly told his associates not to spend their time worrying about Jobbik because their win was so spectacular, he immediately convened a two-day pow-wow to "analyze the results." One doesn't need a vivid imagination to figure out the main topic of the meeting. Even István Elek, a staunch supporter of Fidesz in the past, wrote an analysis in Népszabadság in which he called Fidesz's performance a failure (kudarc). Success, according to Elek, would have been a two-thirds majority instead of 56.37%, and it would have been a source of great satisfaction if Jobbik hadn't been able to send a single delegate to Brussels. Fidesz's message to voters on the right not to "waste" their votes on Jobbik seems to have fallen on deaf ears. Some people predict that Jobbik will build on its success in the EU elections. According to some analysts 10% of Fidesz voters sympathize with the radical right, and that is a big chunk. What if at next year's national elections more former Fidesz voters defect to Jobbik? The question now is what Fidesz is planning to do.
According to Elek, Orbán has no choice but to move toward the middle. After all, if he wants to be accepted by the Western European Christian Democratic parties he cannot join Gábor Vona's and Krisztina Morvai's Jobbik. As it is, a lot of people in liberal and socialist circles blame him for the strong showing of Jobbik. After all, it was he who picked Gábor Vona as a promising young man and took him under his wings. Krisztina Morvai has a more checkered ideological past, but her strictly political career began under Fidesz tutelage in the fall of 2006 when she, together with Zoltán Balog, a Calvinist minister and member of parliament, began a frontal attack on "police brutality." Critics also mention that Fidesz introduced a political culture (if one can call it culture at all) to Hungarian public discourse that led straight to the language Krisztina Morvai and Gábor Vona use. As Tamás Bauer said, everything that Jobbik's leadership says today was already said by Orbán and Fidesz but they did it more carefully and not in such a vulgar manner.
Some people argue that Jobbik's success is simply part of a European trend and highlight the British and Dutch examples. But the extreme right-wing parties of Western Europe focus most of their attention on immigration. Jobbik, by contrast, is racist and increasingly antisemitic. Krisztina Morvai has managed to stir up antisemitism among those who used to spend their time celebrating the glory of pagan Hungary and intimidating Gypsies. Morvai has reframed the debate. Her favorite comparisons are to Israel and Palestine. Jobbik "will not allow Hungary to become a second Palestine," and "Hungarians will not be second-class citizens in their own country." No foreigners will be allowed to buy cheap Hungarian land as happened in Palestine. Morvai's most recent "not for prime time" performance took place on the Internet. As it turns out, there is a conservative Hungarian political discussion group to which Morvai belongs. On that list a man who called himsef a proud Hungarian Jew objected to something Krisztina Morvai said. Morvai answered: "I would be glad if those who call themselves proud Hungarian Jews in their spare time would play with their tiny little circumcised tails instead of abusing me. Your kind expect that if you fart our kind stands at attention and caters to all your wishes. It's time to learn: we no longer oblige! We hold our heads high and no longer tolerate the terror your kind imposes on us. We are taking our country back!" In Morvai's language, of course, "our kind" means Christians and "your kind" means Jews. Well, our conservative gentlemen were horrified! Géza Jeszenszky, foreign minister under József Antall and ambassador to Washington under Viktor Orbán, was flabbergasted: a woman! How can she? A woman? That's not the real problem, is it? (A footnote for those who don't know: Krisztina Morvai is married to a Jew and they have three daughters. Relations between the couple are obviously strained; as she said recently, they believe that "the best thing for the children is when both parents are there for them, but we no longer live together as a couple. We live in the same house, but in two separate households.")
In today's Népszava a cartoon appeared that says a lot about Fidesz's predicament. The background is as follows. About a year ago Viktor Orbán after having a few glasses of wine became expansive and described his "real" plans to a group of young political scientists, students of László Kéri. It was a revelation. While in public he never talked about an austerity program, he told the students that the future under Fidesz would not be as rosy as he was leading people to believe. Then a student asked him what he was planning to do with the Hungarian Guard and the extreme right. He jokingly said that he would do the same as Miklós Horthy, governor of Hungary between the two world wars, did: he would slap them around a bit and that would take care of things. When Orbán's private conversations with the students leaked out, Fidesz's support dropped precipitously. At least for a couple of months. Commentators at the time pointed out that Orbán's knowledge of history left something to be desired because it is a well known fact that in the end the Hungarian Nazi party, the Arrow Cross Party, came into power in the fall of 1944 with German help. Horthy's slapping them around didn't work. The caption reads: "Er! How did our Father Horthy handle this situation with a couple of smacks in the face?" Well, indeed. It's a dilemma.
"Pollsters were wrong about the chances of Jobbik and Fidesz. But they were spot on for some time before the elections about the MSZP numbers ..... Since their predictions for MSZP turned out to be accurate, most of the Jobbik votes must have come from Fidesz."
I don't think this argument adds up at all. Firstly, even if it is correct it only explains why the opinion polls did not predict the result accurately - it doesn't explain the overall movement of votes from one election to another. Secondly, we know that opinion polls everywhere are imperfect predictors of elections - what they can identify for us are general trends. Therefore it is a mistake to make an argument about actual votes purely on the basis of "errors" in the opinion polls. Thirdly, if one reads the opinion polls as identifiers of general trends - this result is perfectly compatible with their findings. The opinion polls since Christmas have revealed several general trends. Firstly, that the MSZP is in free-fall. Secondly, that opinion against the MSZP among a number, including its former voters has been hardening. Thirdly, this hardening extends to all other non-right wing parties, i.e. the SZDSZ. Fourthly, there is no real enthusiasm for FIDESZ among many of those who have deserted the MSZP - its large leads are based on the demoralization of its opponents, more than it winning new, positive support. And fifth, the far right has registered in opinion polls.
"I think that by and large Jobbik's gain was Fidesz's loss."
I think it is true of some of the Jobbik vote, but the more I look at the evidence the more convinced I am of the opposite case (I have to say this is something of a surprise to me, I thought that they wouldn't do what they did on Sunday until after the 2010 elections).
The first reason it strikes me as unlikely that most of these were FIDESZ voters is the overall pattern of differential turnout. Take two pairs of elections - the 2002 parliamentary and 2004 European elections, and the 2006 parliamentary elections and the 2009 European ones. The fall in turnout as a whole between the two European elections and the previous parliamentary elections is about the same. There were 45.9% fewer valid votes in 2004, than in 2002, and 46.5 percent fewer votes cast on Sunday than in the first round in 2006. Then compare the FIDESZ votes in the two pairs of elections - there was a 36.8 percent fall in the absolute number of votes (note that I'm not talking about their percentage share which rose) cast for FIDESZ in 2004, when compared with 2002. The equivalent figure for the period between 2006 and 2009 is a 28.26 percent decline. In other words - unless FIDESZ is winning substantial new numbers of voters direct from the left (and I'll explain below why I think this isn't going on) the willingness of the party's former voters to turnout for a European election and support the party again is much higher than in the previous cycle.
Why is this relevant to the Jobbik score? Because if 51% of Jobbik's "new" voters - the 308,206 more people who voted for them than supported their joint list with MIÉP in 2006 this requires a level of general activism among FIDESZ's 2006 voters this time voters, which given the general fall in turnout is simply implausible, i.e. it would mean 79% of FIDESZ's 2006 voters turning out in an election, when 53.5% percent of all voters in 2006 voted again. Of course, these figures are rough.
It is very difficult to ignore the regional distribution of the vote. If the major section of Jobbik's vote came from FIDESZ's hard-right we would expect Jobbik to gain better results than its national average score in MIÉP's best areas in 2002 and 1998, as voters integrated into FIDESZ after 2002 returned to type. But in those areas Jobbik performed poorly relative to its national score - 10.41 in Budapest's 1 district, 9.35% in the 2nd, 11.14% in the 11th, and 9.52% in the 12th - scarely above MIÉP's own percentage scores when it was scraping 5% nationally. Something else here is clearly going on.
Jobbik's three best counties - Borsod, Heves, and Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok - have been MSZP strongholds, and, indeed, some of their best results within those counties are in areas with a history of voting for the MSZP - Ózd, Hatvan, and Heves are three settlements that sit at the heart of constituencies which have been areas of MSZP where they came third in Sunday. There are clearly lots of former MSZP votes moving across to the far-right here. What complicates the picture is that in Budapest, and in areas of MSZP strength west of the Danube (Baranya, Komárom-Esztergom)Jobbik did relatively badly.
To unpick this we need to look at the problem from the other way - what happened to the MSZP? The raw figures are spectacular - they polled 1,834,098 fewer than in the first round in 2006 (a 78.94 percent fall). They don't appear to be going to FIDESZ in singificant numbers, because if this were happening I would expect to see a more uniform fall in the MSZP vote countrywide (in fact, the fall is less where the MSZP is traditionally weak, and larger where they are strong - which suggests that their voters are staying at home disproportionately). But there is also a movement to Jobbik which is leading turnout to hold up better than one would expect where Jobbik is strong. This comes out in a comparison of the turnout between the two European elections in 2004 and on Sunday. Nationally it was 38.5% in 2004, and fell to 36.3% in 2009 i.e. a 2.2% fall. While the turnout falls between the two elections are highest in Budapest and western Hungary, it is lowest in the north and in the northern Great Plain region there is an increase in voter participation (in all of these counties Jobbik outpolled the MSZP). MSZP voters in Budapest and Transdanubia are overwhelmingly staying at home. However, the evidence suggests that in northern and eastern Hungary, Jobbik is acting as an option for those voters who are sick of the MSZP but not prepared to vote for FIDESZ, and don't want to stay at home either.
What explains this regional divide? Part of it relates to ethnic tension - in western Szabolcs there is clear evidence of an ethnicization of the vote and a polarization between Jobbik and the Roma party, which suggests something fairly horrible is quite likely to happen there. This is also happening in less striking form in parts of Heves and Borsod too. But what it speaks to most is social exclusion, unemployment and poverty, and growing anger in these regions. My suspicion is that Jobbik's rhetoric of "Hungary for the Hungarians", and its complaints that "Hungarians are second-class citizens in their own country" has real resonance among certain voters who have formerly supported the MSZP. In some ways this suggests parallels with the western European far right, but in Hungary the problems are much more extreme and so are likely to be the reactions.
Posted by: Mark | June 09, 2009 at 08:10 PM
The sheer incompetence and complacency of the MSZP never fails to amaze me.
It's like they never saw this coming.
Let's look at how the labour movement in the UK dealt with the National Front in the 70s. Yes, the NF were weaker - but people saw the threat emerge earlier in their localities. First question: Why did the MSZP not identify the far-right threat in these localities - and then take action - years ago? On a local level? That is a crucial question, and I can only think that the MSZP have lacked local activists - and credibility - for a long time. Jobbik are growing out of the MSZP's decay.
Secondly, legal recourse - Hungary has a German-type legal system and I cannot believe that the Hungarian Guard are still allowed on the streets as a legal entity. They are simply TERRORISTS and that is how they should be treated. Legal action against the NF was not available in the UK in the same way as Germany, where authorities have constantly harried the far-right into new formations and thereby prevented prolonged electoral strength emerging.
Thirdly, contest for control of the streets. Creation of an anti-fascist organisation that would mobilize and counter the street presence of fascists. There is a group here - it's tiny, it has no resources. I think they may be anarchists. Where is the "Republican Guard" to confront the "Hungarian Guard"? No, a civil war situation is not desirable. But its better than allowing a fascist putsch.
Fourthly, battle for the upcoming generation - trade unions led the campaigns against the NF, enlisted pop stars, the best artists - concerted, high profile efforts. Once again, efforts are going on, but the idea of a RaR stage at Sziget dilutes the effect of having a specific event. Makes it too easy to drift in, watch a band, then disengage.
Then lastly, the creeping right-wing takeover of universities and schools - history being taught about national glorification, the virtual disappearance of social history, the failure to encourage empathy and a questioning outlook at all stages of education.
Not all of these could have been addressed by the MSZP. But most could. They have been in power, and they've dropped the baby!
Posted by: whoever | June 10, 2009 at 02:22 AM
whoever: "It's like they never saw this coming."
They didn't. My conversations with MSZP members suggest that they didn't take Vona seriously, and thought that the presence of the Magyar Gárda would be politically useful as a stick to beat FIDESZ. They ignored some obvious warning signs of the move of some of their natural supporters to the right - like Gaskó’s victories in the MÁV works’ council elections. They don't have the grassroots activists on the ground - but they haven't had for many years now, and the centre-left in Hungary just doesn't do, or believe in, the kind of grassroots campaigning that would have enabled them to pick the problems up. They are too elitist and paternalist in their political practice. I think they did start to wake up after the Ferencváros by-election, and I hope they realize now that unless they start to address both the far-right and what has underpinned it they could come third behind Jobbik in parliamentary elections next year. The problem is that I don't see them doing that unless they are able to behave as a populist opposition party themselves and start addressing left-wing themes, especially social justice. Of course, the problem is that they are supporting a government which is trying to do things to people, for which they have absolutely no support.
But in all fairness to them, the actual rise of Jobbik has happened very quickly, even if some of the ingredients have been with us for a while. As a foreigner travelling in Hungary I've certainly been able to feel the rise of anti-foreigner sentiment, and the anger at the economic situation. I've also heard people I've regarded as moderate politically use language in conversation which suggests this anger is growing - privatization described as "representing the colonization of the country". And, the mood change has happened very quickly.
And also, both major parties - not just the MSZP are to blame. Éva is absolutely right to blame Orbán for using cynically far right themes for his own short-term advantage. He has been warned on many occassions that he was likely to unleash forces he couldn't control, and FIDESZ has always chosen to dismiss these warnings as left-liberal wining. Now it has started to happen, and he faces the prospect of coming to power next year in difficult economic circumstances with the neo-fascist right breathing down his neck.
Hopefully, Orbán will heed István Elek's advice and locate his party unequivocally on the centre-right. I also hope the MSZP will finally realize that if they continue to pursue the policies demanded by Hungary's financial elite, then the price to be paid for that is likely to be Hungary's current democratic system of government. And, I hope too that they will regard the defence of democracy as more important than their obsession with the free market. But in the spirit of the saying that "the pessimist is never disappointed" I'm not going to hold my breath.
Posted by: Mark | June 10, 2009 at 05:45 AM
Mark: "They don't have the grassroots activists on the ground - but they haven't had for many years now, and the centre-left in Hungary just doesn't do, or believe in, the kind of grassroots campaigning that would have enabled them to pick the problems up."
That's very true but the Hungarian election laws make such grassroot activities very difficult. Fidesz knows that modern campaigns cannot be waged without extensive database of supporters but because of the election laws they have to cheat in order to wage effective campaigns. The MSZP refuses to follow suit. I don't know why not. Perhaps they are just too dumb, too honest or too lazy. In any case, it is a big mistake.
Posted by: Eva S. Balogh | June 10, 2009 at 07:56 AM
Éva: "That's very true but the Hungarian election laws make such grassroot activities very difficult."
That is certainly true for election campaigning, but I think it is more important for a party to consider its ongoing presence in local communities between elections. If a party doesn't have roots in the community - if it doesn't talk to people at work, to the parents picking their kids up from school, at the shops - it doesn't know what is going on, and re-inforces a sense of its own distance. I suspect, if it is like other industrial communities I know better, that the MSZP in Ózd is made up predominantly of retired local officials from the previous system, and a few local businessmen. I'm sure the despite the support the MSZP has enjoyed in Ózd in the last four parliamentary elections, its people don't feel that the party they have chosen represents them effectively at local or national level. In fact given the social disaster that has unfolded in the town since the late 1980s (which has been documented by Tamás Almási in his series of films on the town), if the MSZP had some life at the grassroots, and its national leadership had been open to their perspective, Hungary's government would have pursued very different social and employment policies.
Posted by: Mark | June 10, 2009 at 09:06 AM
Mark, MSZP was a ruling party for decades of a dictatorship, and governing party for 11 years out of 19 of the democratic period. No wonder that it lacks grassroots connection of a left-wing party, which may endured several decades of opposition, and only could fall back to her roots for support. The best, what you may expect from such reformed party is a kind of combination of statist welfare policies with "enlighted" pro-european, pro-business policies within the framework of the democratic system.
Posted by: Andras | June 11, 2009 at 01:15 AM
András: "MSZP was a ruling party for decades of a dictatorship, and governing party for 11 years out of 19 of the democratic period. No wonder that it lacks grassroots connection of a left-wing party."
Of course, you're absolutely right - but there are two things here worth considering.
The crisis of grassroots activism is not confined to the post-communist left, but is present across north-western Europe (when you compare the vote share of the MSZP to its British or Dutch sister parties its result looks positively good). These problems seem to be independent of the pasts of given parties, but are very much related to disappointment, the lack of a distinctive message from the top, and a dependence on media-based campaigning, which has shaped a consumerist, rather than a participatory approach to democracy. Again, especially noteworthy across Europe is the serious problem of credibility that social democratic parties have in their former strongholds in ex-industrial areas. It is striking that in the UK for example, in the city - Barnsley - where the miners' confrontation with the Thatcher government in 1984 began - the far right British National Party scored over 17 percent of the vote (one of its best results in the country). What is really different about Hungary is the poisnous nature of the right, and that if you look at how the political field is constructed the space for any kind of left or liberal politics is dependent on this decay being stopped (what I mean is that given the nature of Hungary's right, liberalism has no prospect of being anything other than an utterly isolated minority unless it can approach power through an alliance with a left with mass support - this isn't true in western Europe).
My second point is that in twenty years a party, or a movement ought to be able to reinvent itself. Indeed, in some senses the MSZP has. Who would have thought in 1989 that it would have the electoral record over the suceeding twenty years that it has had? But in that reinvention it has left grassroots activism, the streets, the young, and now many of the communities that have voted for it to the populist right. I accept your point that given the dead-weight of dictatorship it would have always been difficult to match the right's organizing capacity, but I do think if they had accepted that it was important to have a "civil society" in the areas that voted for it that was a partner, they would be in a better state now.
Posted by: Mark | June 11, 2009 at 05:27 AM
Mark, when I wrote about the dead weight of he dictatorship, I meant that that the backbone of the cadre-pool of MSZP had been, or possibly has been in elite positions for decades, thus no wonder that has low affinity to grassroots activities. The other factor, namely, being in governing position for such a long time, also hindered the grassroots remaking of the party from below. After 2010, it is likely, that MSZP, finally, would have time to reinvent herself and search and find her grassroots. None the less, the last few years made so much damage for the party, that even I am not sure whether they could continue credibly in the present form. Even I am not sure that the present, diametrically opposed interests groups within the party, are ready to work together after 2010. But this is the story of the future.
On the elections results. I did saw coming these results. If you remember, I argued in this forum late autumn last year, that MSZP should convene early elections to avoid the kind of disaster what happened in these elections. Still, I was surprised to see that Jobbik did get such a high vote, some at the expense of MSZP. This also means, that Jobbik presence would make very difficult to MSZP to develop a new grassroots base.
Posted by: Andras | June 11, 2009 at 06:04 AM
I would doubt whether the cadres of MSZP inherited from MSZMP bears this wight the way András suggest. The former party was organized for decades along lines of a centralized but structured party in wich issues of politics and ideology were discussed, members that way prepared etc. Either it was effective or not, yieled more real knowledge for members or only some ideoloigzed distortion of the world, it has a tradition. And in many cases MSZP organizations with leftover MSZMP members, based on these traditions were quite effective after 1989. But it is true that those people are slowly disappearing, getting older etc.
On the other hand the many from the elite in the Mszp rather fears this kind of model for a party. Either because they "fought" agianst this "undemocratic" model as members of the so called Reform Körök, or simply because it is more convenient for their political aims to divide the party between themselves into separate dominions. Many politicians has their own followers, organized into separate elements of the party, many times chairmen of territorial party organizations align themselves with those politicians, make alliances etc. And it is rather problematic to have an active, open, involving grassroot network, giving a cehnce for new members, potential challangers instead of having your own vassals in positions. The MSZP was not even ready to look after best practice examples from sister parties in the West. (For example the SPD awards at the occasion of its congress a prestigeous prize for one of its local or regional organizations as a rewrad for some grassrot project.) But it is not necessarily a consequence of earlier MSZMP experiences, or the other way round.
Posted by: Gábor | June 11, 2009 at 06:47 AM
András: "None the less, the last few years made so much damage for the party, that even I am not sure whether they could continue credibly in the present form."
I think we agree .....
1. We both know, I suspect, that the MSZP in industrial towns was organized predominantly from the former middle-managament of the big state companies. I saw this happen in the 1990s. As the social identities of company loyalty have become increasingly irrelevant, i.e. as the companies that sustained them have disappeared, I suspect even the local presence is vanishing.
2. Early elections are the lesser of all of the evils. The longer they hang on, the worse this is going to get. When their cuts are actually implemented and felt in peoples' pockets their vote will go down further. If they went for elections now they might just be the main opposition party; if they stay until next year they will probably take third place.
3. MSZP suffers from a fundamental trust problem and this will not be solved easily. What everyone now has to consider seriously is the nightmare scenario, because it has become more likely as a result of the elections. FIDESZ wins next year and the economy remains stagnant during most of its term, which means that the government can do nothing more than crisis management. The MSZP picks up no support because it is discredited, and Jobbik - by default - establishes itself as the main contender for power in 2014. I'm especially curious to see how FIDESZ tries to respond to this danger.
4. I'm surprised (and shocked) at how much progress Jobbik have made and how quickly. I'm not surprised they are in the EP, but the evidence up until Sunday suggested a maximum score of 10% drawn mostly from ex-FIDESZ voters. This result shows us something else - which is that just as in the 1930s, a party of the radical right can cut right into the left's natural base of support. We've not seen this in Hungary since the 1930s. And what is more, there are lots of signs that Jobbik has not yet reached its maximum level of support.
Posted by: Mark | June 11, 2009 at 07:08 AM
Gábor: "(For example the SPD awards at the occasion of its congress a prestigeous prize for one of its local or regional organizations as a rewra d for some grassrot project.) But it is not necessarily a consequence of earlier MSZMP experiences, or the other way round."
I agree. They dread any kind of centralization. See the platforms that cause a lot of problems running the party. I don't think that there are too complicated causes of this defeat. The main problem is the austerity program. If the government could have continued to give and give (from the nothing) they would be successful today just as they were in 2004. The party's popularity began sinking even before Balatonőszöd. As for Fidesz it is popular as long as they are promising heaven and earth but just wait.
Posted by: Eva S. Balogh | June 11, 2009 at 07:24 AM
Gábor: "On the other hand the many from the elite in the Mszp rather fears this kind of model for a party."
This is a fascinating point. If only because one cannot fail to notice reading the minute books of party base organizations from the period of the Kádár era in the archives, the degree of criticism of the regime and government from the left that was expressed by the membership. The MSZP is very much the product of the "reform socialist" project of 1968, and we know that the "leftism" of the party apparatus was blamed by reformers for the partial reversal of reforms in the early 1970s. Your comment sheds light on aspects of the pre-history of the MSZP that are relevant to its failures post-1989 that are really important.
Posted by: Mark | June 11, 2009 at 07:29 AM
The debate is worthwhile and interesting. Make take away from it is:
(1) The MSZP leadership at its core acts like and has for a long time considered itself an elite vanguard. As such, it is not an inherently democratic organization, and therefore has not acted in a way that is necessarily responsive to its base.
(2) The MSZP was also fundamentally dishonest with its voter base. It desired to be seen as a mass party looking after the economic and social interests of the mass, but in reality it has become a party focused on and protecting the interests of a smaller group of business interests and people well connected with the Party (See the activities of the MFB). This contradiction is no longer tenable.
(3) As we all know from recent history, the political specturm is really shaped more as a circle and not a straight line. As such, the far left and the far right often converge politically. Lets face it, Jobbik was often saying more socialistic things that the MSZP.
(4) Finally, the conclusion must be that the sad reality of this country is that the vast majority of the people want some form of left wing social welfare state. But at the same time, as the conditions in the country worsen, these policy preferences are then easily combined with more xenophonic, populist impulses. (Liberalism has never had much of a following.) Jobbik is the best and clearest expression of such a desire.
Posted by: nwo | June 12, 2009 at 05:31 AM
1) I do not think that MSZP was fundamentally dishonest and only served interests of small groups of clients and business leaders.
2) I think, MSZP 2002 onwards really tried to have a European style welfare state. They really expanded welfare provisions. Yes, at the same time, they also had their own clients, corruption etc, but name one political party, which do not have such issues. The problem was that they did the expansion of the welfare state in a very incompetent way. They did not calculate with the long term effects of the measures.
2) 2006 was the moment when EU and international creditors forced a policy change and required MSZP to have a U-turn. The Gyurcsany-package was a rather half-hearted restructuring. Instead of cutting welfare state, it taxed business, further reducing competitiveness, in order to lower budget deficit to meet the requirements of EU. The half hearted measures were the consequence that MSZP as a party is not a neo-liberal inclined party with pro-business "secret agenda", but exactly the opposite of such policy.
3) What is amazing is the incompetence of MSZP. Incompetence in both periods of governance as far as management of the economy concerned. They did insanely loose budgetary policy between 2002-2005, and did not employ a more efficient, pro-business reforms after 2006.
4) They were also incompetent to PR themselves and they let FIDESZ govern public opinion. It is really funny, that the government was seen a neoliberal pro-business one, although during 2002-2005 Hungarian population really enjoyed a huge increase of real income, reduction of economic inequality, expansion of welfare state and state financed infrastructure development projects, and business lost competitiveness compared to other countries in the region! After 2006, the public perception was that MSZP is pro-business party and not that a leftist-welfare oriented MSZP did half-heartedly followed an agenda dictated by the circumstances.
5) Not only MSZP had a disastrous economic policy, but the government also was unable to promote better governance. Instead of better governance, they nurtured chaos, disintegration. Gyurcsany proved to be one of the worst Prime Minister as far as ability of managing the governance concerned (in close competition with Medgyessy). Medgyessy, at least, was not a good speaker. Gyurcsány ability to spin the situation and talk was in stark contrast with his weak record as prime minister.
6) Plus: corruption, business ties, clientelistic linkages, and politically biased decision making by some of the richest men of Hungary in the name of the poors and the left!
7) Death knell of MSZP was the leaking of the Öszöd speech of Gyurcsany. That completely undermined the legitimacy and democratic credentials of the government, MSZP (and SZDSZ). I think, now, it was a mistake, a real mistake, a tragic mistake not to dismiss Gyurcsany immediately after Öszöd, and not to call an early elections than. Janos Kiss had the right opinion back in 2006, when he called for the step down of Gyurcsány on ethical grounds. (Gyurcsány, to a certain extent, a real Shakespearean "hero": his own limitless political passion not only destroyed his own political carrier, but the very project for which he wanted to lead the party, and govern the country).
8) The Shakespearean "tragic personal mistake" of Gyurcsany allowed the development of tragic collision of a greek tragedy between two different ethical standpoints. It allowed for Orbán to wage a relentless total war against the "undemocratic" and "illegitimate" government, MSZP, leftist and to realistically claim that there is not so much difference between the communist tactics of the forties and fifties and now. This allowed Orban to use any means to "defend the democracy" against the communist style covered coup-de etat of MSZP. This also "delegitimised" MSZP own ethical warfare against "undemocratic" right resembling to a certain extant to the radical right movements of the twenties and thirties.
8)This is the very background of the rise of Jobbik. In this sense, as I wrote earlier in this blog, we are repeating the history of undoing the Weimar regime: the moderate right fighting against the left, while the left has weak democratic credentials allows the rise of extreme right.
9) The emergence of the Jobbik also, due to two other phenomenons.
9a) Emergence of the cigánykérdés (gipsy issue). Sociological surveys since the early nineties are reporting about that a clear majority of non-gypsy population is rejecting the gypsy-population. Still, gypsy issue was not an openly debated issue. Three tragic events moved the gypsy issue into the mainstream political discussion: 1) murder of an innocent driver, a local teacher, in Olaszliszka by a mob, 2) murder of Marion Cozma by thugs in Veszprém, 3) the statements of the police chief of Miskolc about gypsy-crime. Since than the gipsy issue is primarily issue of law and order, representing a case for state disintegration and chaos, and allowed for Magyar Gárda and Jobbik to seize the issue as an issue of law and order, and one of defending interests of hard working "Hungarians". To what extent became law and order issue the situation of gypsies examplified by an interview with Eszter Babarczy in the Klubradio, who called for more police presence in small villages to defend people against pretty crime!
9b) The economic crisis highlighted the vulnerability of the FDI based economic development model, and reinforced the claims of the extreme right that the poor Hungarians are exploited by mean foreigners (heartless vulture capitalists orchestrated by Jewish financial circles served by local….), and Hungarians are rigthless labourers on their own land serving foreign interests instead of working for themselves... hence the metaphora of Palestina on the Alföld is more than simple anti-semitic rant to please xehophobic sentiments, but expresses a social grievance – even if in a distorted form.
The trouble now is that the last 7 years of cold civil warfare between MSZP and FIDESZ weakened the democratic system and created unrealistic expectations. The future really hangs very much on the judgements of Orbán, and what policies he would employ until 2010, and after 2010. The current disintegration of the left-liberal block may allow to end the relentless party competition between moderate left and moderate right, and the same time the emergence of extreme right may force FIDESZ to move into the center in every sense. I really think that without a grand compromise among the moderate political forces would be very difficult to find a "European" way out of the current stalemate.
Posted by: Andras | June 12, 2009 at 07:56 PM
András: "I do not think that MSZP was fundamentally dishonest and only served interests of small groups of clients and business leaders."
Dishonesty is too strong, but there is an institutional corruption about the MSZP, manifested most clearly by the Gyurcsány phenomenon that revealed an unhealthy fusion of political power and wealth, and considerable toleration of personal corruption (all those paper members). But, I think this happened not because of any well worked out plan, but because of the lack of a political strategy on the part of the party, i.e. they never articulated what it meant to be a mass-party of the centre-left under post-socialist circumstances. Because of this - and I think here NWO is absolutely right - they became a "party focused on and protecting the interests of a smaller group of business interests and people well connected with the Party".
András: "I think, MSZP 2002 onwards really tried to have a European style welfare state. They really expanded welfare provisions."
Expanding welfare provision is not the same as creating a European welfare state. The basic principles of the European social democratic welfare state - if we look at Sweden in the 1930s, or the UK a decade later - rests on full employment; in other words the state has a duty to run economic policy to give individuals the means to provide for themselves. The welfare net is conceived as a form of social insurance open to those unable to work. It rests on a social contract - a citizen is expected to contribute by working and to do their utmost to pay their way. If the citizen cannot work but proves either they have good reason, or are "actively seeking work", then they have a claim to assistance. In addition access to health care and a range of other benefits is provided on "social insurance" principles.
What Medgyessy did was to distribute through using what was left of the state socialist mechanisms of centralized redistribution. These rested on a very different logic - in other words work for the state was a civic obligation (at least prior to 1989); all citizens worked, and all were entitled to a social wage, through health care, subsidized energy bills, public transport etc. The economic system that supported this "social wage" disappeared, but the sense of entitlement it created didn't, and nor did much of the system - even though it had been scaled back. As society changed around it, this "social wage" proved inadequate to protect the poor, but remained - through the low gas prices, public transport exemptions etc. - a very important source of income-in-kind for households close at or below the median income.
Economic liberals, like Bokros, have argued that the way to deal with the failing of a "social wage" which no longer fits the realities of the society around it, is to create a discretionary system of assistance - like in the US - where benefits are concentrated on the poorest. But this opens up a huge political problem, that is not very dismilar from the US experience. Among the poorest members of a large ethnic minority are overrepresented - in Hungary's case, the Roma. As the "social wage" is cut many at or below the median see the liberal reform of welfare as nothing more than a redistribution of state assistance away from them to an undeserving and distinct ethnic minority.
And again this takes us back to the lack of a viable left-wing strategy on the part of the MSZP. They had no viable strategy for creating a welfare state that matched the realities created by economic circumstances and public opinion.
Posted by: Mark | June 13, 2009 at 06:48 AM
András: “Emergence of the cigánykérdés (gipsy issue). Sociological surveys since the early nineties are reporting about that a clear majority of non-gypsy population is rejecting the gypsy-population.”
This is a much more deep-rooted problem. In the early 1960s, a journalist András Faludi produced a series of reports and a book dealing with the situation of Roma across Hungary. It is worth quoting what he wrote (in 1964!):
“Here (in Hungary – M.P.) it is a widely held view, that the gypsy doesn’t like work. For this reason, immediately after citing the earlier data we have to note: there are a considerable number of them who would happily work, but they are hindered in realizing their intention by the fact that some of the factories and farms are not prepared to employ gypsies, and agricultural producer co-operative take them on only with difficulty. And it is a general phenomenon, that those who are taken on by factories, and farms, and collectives, get the worst jobs – often without reason, sometimes because of a lack of skill, or because they are illiterate. As a result they earn less well than the average, in most cases doing the most difficult work”. (András Faludi, Cigányok, (Bp.: Kossth, 1964). pp.10-1, my translation).
If I can’t but help think that is there was more awareness of the social history of Roma, and if indeed the history of Hungary was conceived as that of all the peoples living in Hungary, rather being intertwined with national myth, liberals and others (who should know better) would be better placed to challenge the dangerous rubbish being peddled by the far right. They certainly wouldn’t be repeating it on Klub Rádió!
Posted by: Mark | June 13, 2009 at 07:08 AM
"They did insanely loose budgetary policy between 2002-2005, and did not employ a more efficient, pro-business reforms after 2006. "
The MSZP have always been pro-business - pro THEIR businesses. Fidesz will follow suit. The often unwritten history of the Horn government's privatisations, the re-direction of EU money - the MSZP loves businesses. Some of them - their own. This is a government employing Veres - for goodness sake - there's a man with integrity.
Medgyessy gets to carry the can, but my understanding is that the MSZP made these huge spending commitments in the run-up to 2002. He actually delivered on these -and then immediately had to tighten up the purse-strings. I remember 2004 being noted for the start of austerity measures - dropped by Gyurcsany, and then re-introduced in the most amateurish way possible in 2006 by the same man who'd dropped them.
In this sense I can understand Medgyessy's schadenfreude in regards to the MSZP's and SZDSZ' current situation.
There's no business like politics, after all.
Jobbik in this situation are the wild card. What are they after? If they are genuine uncorruptable radicals, one could imagine Fidesz will be feeling the heat somewhat.
Posted by: whoever | June 13, 2009 at 07:37 AM
Whoever, quoting András: "They did insanely loose budgetary policy between 2002-2005, and did not employ a more efficient, pro-business reforms after 2006. "
It is worth noting that there is nothing leftist about "insanely loose budgetary policy". If my memory serves looking at historical statistics one of the Hungarian governments that consistently ran the largest budget surpluses since 1867 was Mátyás Rákosi’s between 1952 and 1953.
In pracice debt-financed expansion and neo-liberalism go together, and this is simply because monetarist, neo-liberal policies, left to their own devices, in practice produce stagnation and low growth. In democratic states, i.e. outside Chile between 1973 and 1990, this proves only to be sustainable for a short-time and they need a policy change to keep the show on the road. The "politically correct" way for neo-liberals to ignite growth is to deregulate finance and create a private sector credit boom - like the Thatcher government did in the mid-1980s in the UK. But as we know from the economic history of the USA under Ronald Reagan and more recently under George W. Bush they do "insanely loose budgetary policy" too. Though I concede the public spending was on the military, and not social spending, the example of the Blair government in the UK since 2002 shows that - again - there is no contradiction between being neo-liberal and boosting social spending, without guaranteeing the underlying funding. In fact under Medgyessy and Gyurcsány we saw both an unsustainable private sector credit boom (those CHF mortgages), and loose budgetary policy (not disimilar to the UK or the US)- albeit in an economy much less able to respond to the stimulus provided - hence the scale of the problem. I know that neo-liberal theory tells us this is not supposed to happen, but the socialist textbooks tell us that no shortages are supposed to emerge in centrally planned economies either!
Posted by: Mark | June 13, 2009 at 09:02 AM
Mark
While the two of us no doubt have different visions as to what would constitute a succesful long term economic and fiscal policy for Hungary, you are 100% correct in stating that policy has been about redistribution and not full employment, and this has been the fatal flaw in the system. What has made this worse (like the debate about SSI in the States) is that in Hungary most of the redistribution has been seen as a middle class entitlement and not a safety net (see the debates over the HUF 300 medical visits and school fees).
Where I suspect we probably disagree is in our views as to how much the State could or should have done to create jobs in the poorer parts of Hu. I still believe the best route would have included (1) strict budget discipline thereby allowing for lower HUF interest rates, (2) tax policy condusive to job creation-lower personal and corporate income taxes, substantially smaller tax wedge but higher consumption abd asset/property taxes, (3) regulatory streamlining and reform and (4) investment in elementary and middle and high school education and infrastructure investment focused on less developed regions (and not on bs like the 4th Metro line).
NWO
Posted by: NWO | June 14, 2009 at 06:53 AM
NWO: "While the two of us no doubt have different visions as to what would constitute a succesful long term economic and fiscal policy for Hungary."
There are differences, but I don't think we're as far apart as you might think. The best social policy in a market economy is the one that allows the greatest number to secure the benefits of economic growth. This means ensuring that the largest number of people possible can improve their circumstances through their own efforts, i.e. working for a decent income, and providing adequate social insurance for illness, unemployment, old age, and support for the bringing up of children (I think this had been the stated aim of the MSZP and they had pursued policies consistent with it, the crisis they have suffered since 2006 would have been a more recoverable period of difficulty).
I can, though, see sense in some redistribution as there comes a point at which economic inequality acts as a break on equality of opportunity, and thus on social mobility (though one should beware of mindless levelling). However, what happened in Hungary wasn't even this. We know that in 2001, the MSZP had no vision but were desperate to prevent FIDESZ winning a second term. They tried first to solve their problem by selecting a candidate for Prime Minister - and the best they could do was Medgyessy (which wasn't that good). So, they promised a pensions' and public sector pay hike (which is not the same as creating a social safety net). And in 2002 they won so narrowly that they were forced to deliver a set of ill-thought out promises to stablize the government in the face of FIDESZ's attempts to force them out.
I have long been critical of investment in prestige projects, which I don't think would have passed proper cost benefit analyses (and I'd include the M4 and much of the motorway construction in this - I think this money would have been better spent on smaller-scale community-based regeneration, improving energy efficiency, basic physical infrastructure especially in poorer rural areas, and on job creation).
In terms of fiscal policy - a taxation system which taxes waste (especially energy consumption and pollution more), and not work, seems to me to be a sensible strategy. I generally favour counter-cyclical fiscal policies, in other words during periods of boom governments should cut spending and keep taxes high to curb inflation, and reduce taxes and boost spending in a downturn to boost growth. However, in the last decade there have been deeper structural problems in the Hungarian economy, which we are now aware of, which would have made this difficult. We know now that outside of the export-oriented, foreign-owned manufacturing, that the underlying state of the Hungarian economy is quite weak. We also know that even with the huge stimulus of the early MSZP years, Hungary produced relatively modest growth (3-4%). I suspect that without this stimulus, Hungary would have suffered five years of economic stagnation before the onset of the crisis, and its trajectory would have resembled Italy's (albeit with a much lower standard-of-living).
Posted by: Mark | June 14, 2009 at 08:08 AM
In the years 2002-2006, Government spending replaced FDI. Domestic capital formation and investment (other than in the real estate sector) has always been poor. I remember the NBH President telling me in 2006/2007 that as far as the National Bank could determine the natural rate of growth in Hungary was 2-3% due to so many lack of investment in capital and human capital. Due to the lack of competitiveness (strangely this really started post-2004 and EU accession), strategic investors that had invested previously in the country instead of reinvesting profits were repatriating profits and investing in other emerging markets or domesticaly. Part of the reason at least in the CEE was that before EU accession, Hungary and the Cz Republic were socially and politically the safest destinations in the CEE (much more so than Poland, Slovakia and the Balkans). After the first wave of Accession, Poland and Slovakia (and even Romania from the outside looking in) were deemed safe by investors, and so this big advantage Hu had enjoyed disappeared overnight. In this way, ironically, when one sees polls showing that Hungarians believe they have not benefitted from EU accession (something I 99% disagree with) there is some kernel of truth in it (at least on a relative basis-which is all that counts really).
Posted by: New World Order | June 14, 2009 at 03:11 PM
NWO: "In the years 2002-2006, Government spending replaced FDI."
This is exactly how I read the evidence, and I think you are right to point out the way in which the decision of the EU to go for a "big enlargement", rather than a small one destroyed Hungary's earlier advantage. Hungary's position is an extreme example of a more general difficulty with FDI in CEE. If you look at the EU as a whole whereas in the mid-1990s most of was in manufacturing, the transformation of technology has led to a major shift in its balance towards services. The big western European economies (the UK and France especially) seem to lead the way. None of this kind of investment seems to find its way to CEE, which is still concentrated in manufacturing, and on the eve of the onset of the crisis there were signs that the growth of FDI in the region was reaching its limit. What is more here improvements in the relative market shares of states seem to be being achieved at the expense of other CEE states, suggesting that there is competition based on costs for FDI which is a kind of "zero-sum" game. What I'm getting at is Hungary doesn't have the infrastructure, the skilled workforce, or the research base to compete with the richer western European states for FDI in services (the real growth area of the past decade), and has been hammered the other way because of low cost competition from other states for investment in manufacturing.
Posted by: Mark | June 15, 2009 at 05:19 AM
Mark
You are correct, but there is ABSOLUTELY nothing that can be done about this. Increasingly, except for some specialized manufacturing, the CEE will not be competitive against Asia, North Africa etc. This is all the more true as the EU imposes substantial costs on a country and these are not counter balanced by better trade terms. Moreover, I disagree somewhat on your point on the service sector. There is room for countries like Hungary to compete, but this is hampered by poor education and the lack of free competition in the service sector in the EU. Ironically, again, Hungary made a real effort to get ahead of the other CEE countries in being competitive in the service sector (e.g., improving the telecommunications infrastructure much earlier than other countries in the region) but they have for various reasons not benefitted as much as they had hoped from these efforts. Anyway, call centers and other out sourced services that can be provided from Hungary only provide limited (though important)opportunities and are concentrated in Budapest.
Posted by: NWO | June 15, 2009 at 07:00 AM
Interesting debate.
MSZP has faced one of its most humiliating loss. It is clear that a big number of former MSZP voters have voted for JOBBIK. The map of Hungarian votes shows that some of the strongholds of MSZP have been "taken over" by Jobbik. This reminds me the after WWII years when Hungarian Nazis have been co-opted in the communist party. Now is the other way around. Former MSZP voters join the Nazi party. I think that MSZP has a huge share of responsibility for the migration of votes to the far right. This is putting at risk Hungary's democratic future.
I have to agree with Mark's analysis in his first post (thanks for your unbiased analysis), most of the Jobbik voters come from MSZP.
I have to agree with Andras that the öszöd speech was one of the root causes of the defeat of MSZP.
When I have listened to that speech I could not believe my ears. I have realized that it is a genuine recording only after Gyurcsany confirmed.
Who can trust someone who says: "We lied morning, night and evening."
"A footnote for those who don't know: Krisztina Morvai is married to a Jew and they have three daughters."
Does it have any relevance to whom is married Morvai?
Morvai's letter has been written in January 2009. It is at least interesting that this matter has been published only half year later, just before the elections.
"About a year ago Viktor Orbán after having a few glasses of wine became expansive".
He didn't drink, this is just an urban legend.
Posted by: Pal Marosy | June 18, 2009 at 04:17 PM