Jobbik: Are the Hungarian media after the party?

Yes, and not without success. Although parties on the left don't seem to have much skill in unearthing dirt,  Fidesz has a long history of successful detective work against its political opponents. Once Jobbik's danger to Fidesz became evident the Fidesz sleuths began work in earnest. In fairly short order they came up with some really juicy stories.

Let's start with stories that are old and have nothing to do with the media. Last April a man who was a member of the Hungarian Guard in Kalocsa fatally stabbed his girlfriend and drew a swastika on the poor girl's back post mortem. At last the case was decided; he got a fifteen-year sentence. A bit earlier it came to light that the chairman of the Bicske chapter of Jobbik was involved with the Arrows of the Hungarians, an organization led by György Budaházy. The group carried out a number of attacks against MSZP and SZDSZ politicians and its members were planning the assassination of some politicians not to their liking. The Jobbik politician from Bicske was supplying Budaházy's gang with ammunition. He had to resign.

But that's not the end. It was discovered that one of Jobbik's spokesmen, András Király, participated in a gay parade in Canada. Vivid pictures illustrated his "misdeeds." They are in stark contrast to the pious portrait he drew of himself as a deeply religious person who reads the Bible every night to his beloved wife and children.

Then came pictures of Adonis Kassab, Jobbik's candidate in the ninth district in Budapest, with a group of friends. It seems from the objects on the table that they were enjoying more than just a little wine.

Magyar Nemzet unearthed a rather ugly story. Tamás Sneider, #9 on Jobbik's country list and therefore most likely a future member of parliament, wanted to put his parents under guardianship because according to him his father wanted to kill him. The parents had a different story to tell. Sneider apparently spent the family's fortune of 8.5 million forints and further demanded the sale of their winery in Eger. When they refused, all hell broke loose and the parents sued the son. It was at this point that Sneider insisted that his parents were no longer able to be on their own due to their psychological impairment. Since then psychiatrists have determined that the parents are perfectly normal. According to the parents, Sneider is a no good who never did a day's work and who always demanded money from them.

It was discovered that another Jobbik politician had spent nineteen years in jail for murdering his wife. Since then he has resigned.

One of the latest possible criminal links to Jobbik came with the arrest of a young man who robbed several banks and gas stations to the tune of 50 million forints. One of his sisters told an ATV reporter that at first the family was completely baffled about where the 50 million went. Apparently their brother had claimed that he used the money to pay off gambling debts. The problem was, according to the family, that he never gambled. On the other hand, the family knew that he was involved with Jobbik; at one point he admitted helping the party financially. A day or two later the young man's girlfriend came forth and gave further details. She also mentioned that several times he had been sent to the United States by the party to get in touch with possible supporters. According to the girlfriend that the two of them had very little money and therefore she also suspects that the money was passed on to the chairman of Jobbik in the XIII district in Budapest. The chairman of course claims that he has never heard of the man.

In addition to the possible criminal cases there are others that are politically embarrassing. One is that Jobbik, so fiercely anti-communist, swore that no former MSZMP member could be a member of Jobbik. Yet László Nyikos, Jobbik's candidate for the post of finance minister, was an MSZMP member from the 1970s until the change of regime in 1989. And there are others who were in government service during the Orbán or even the MSZP-SZDSZ governments. Tamás Hegedűs, Jobbik's candidate for a ministerial post, worked in the Office of the Prime Minister under Viktor Orbán but for a while he was even a member of SZDSZ. Balázs Lenhardt, another candidate, worked in the economics ministry between 2000 and 2006.

An even bigger blow was the discovery today that Krisztina Morvai worked as an "expert" for the MSZP-SZDSZ government and for her advice received close to a million forints. Jobbik that normally reacts fairly speedily to these accusations, usually blaming Fidesz, said nothing after the Morvai case broke. Admittedly, Morvai's relationship with the party is rather peculiar. She is not a member of the party and although she is Jobbik's candidate for the post of president, just the other day she announced that she has no intention of leaving Brussels regardless of what happens. There were already rumors that Gábor Vona is not too happy with Morvai's support of Budaházy who is after all accused of terrorism. Morvai's encounter with an official over illegal parking the other day is also unfortunate from Jobbik's point of view: Morvai didn't want to pay the fine, claiming immunity. When the story broke she denied the whole thing and indicated that it was the official who lied. He was the one who tried to convince her that she didn't have to pay the fine because of her immunity status. I don't think anyone believes her version of the story.

So, all in all, Jobbik is encountering some serious difficulties but I wouldn't go so far as to predict that the party's success at the polls will be jeopardized by these revelations. I think that most Jobbik voters will chalk them up to the antagonistic Fidesz and liberal media.

Comments

[Mark]

"So, all in all, Jobbik is encountering some serious difficulties but I wouldn't go so far as to predict that the party's success at the polls will be jeopardized by these revelations."

It is a tiny piece of evidence and probably not indicative of anything very much, but I was surprised to see that in yesterday's by-election for an assembly seat in Budapest VI's district Jobbik's share of the vote was a good 4-5% lower than in the results in the precincts that make up the district in the European election last year:

http://www.terezvaros.hu/valasztas_idokozi/eredmeny.jpg

Not the sort of result I'd be hoping for two weeks before a national election in which I was hoping for a breakthrough.

[Paul Hellyer]

One thing about seems an almost universal political truth: the further to the Right you go, the greater the propensity for hypocrisy. It seems that Jobbik members are perfect examples of this.

[whoever]

Not only the right-wing media, but also TV2 and RTL Klub have declared war - potentially, this is more damaging than Magyar Nemzet/Hírlap. But is it too little, too late?

[Eva S. Balogh]

Mark: "but I was surprised to see that in yesterday's by-election for an assembly seat in Budapest VI's district Jobbik's share of the vote was a good 4-5% lower than in the results in the precincts that make up the district in the European election last year"

On the other hand, Jobbik did well in Mezőtúr and Körmend. About as well as last year at the EP elections. In both cases their candidate finished second, ahead of MSZP.

[NWO]

I think this kind of stuff is fairly common in political parties organized by and around a single or a few highly visible leaders. As the party grows, it must start to take in a lot of questionable types. It is obvious there is no bench in Jobbik behind Vona and maybe one or two others. It is also for sure that as soon as they actually have real elected roles, the internal tensions will get even greater and the risk of the party breaking apart in to tow of three dissident Jobbik parties will be high.

[Mark]

Éva: "On the other hand, Jobbik did well in Mezőtúr and Körmend. About as well as last year at the EP elections."

No they didn't - not in any three of the by-elections. What you need to do is identify the precincts that make up each of the local authority districts, and use the data from each precinct to calculate the 2009 European election results across that district and then compare the movement of votes.

So, in revese order of how bad they were for Jobbik:

Körmend - 14.71% on Sunday compared with 16.42% in the European elections; a loss of 1.71%

Mezőtúr - 24.5% on Sunday compared with 28.3% in the European elections; a loss of 3.8%

Budapest VI - 5.02% on Sunday compared with 10.64% - a loss of 5.62%

Three results from three different regions of the country, and they're going backwards in all three of them.

[Mark]

Of course the real issue is what this means - because of the lower turnout are different people voting in these by-elections; normally the closer you get to a major election the more these converge. As I say, if Jobbik were asking me what they would get on this basis (and taking into account the rider that there may be other factors in play) I'd say that they'll end up clearly third quite a way behind MSZP with 11-13% of the national vote share.

[Eva S. Balogh]

Mark, the couple of percentage points simply means nothing in case of Mezőtúr and Körmend. We are dealing here with a few hundred people all told. If two Jobbik sympathizers didn't go and vote you may have the difference right there. I wouldn't read too much into these results.

[Öcsi]

Nézőpont Intézet is hinting that Jobbik, like many new, extremist parties, will implode from internal conflicts.

"A párt keretein belüli szélsőségesek terén külön szervezeti problémát jelent a kampány idejére közterületi felvonulásait felfüggesztő Magyar Gárda, amelynek időleges háttérbe vonása nem értékelhető meggyengülésként. Erre utalnak Kiss Róbert főkapitány szavai is, mely szerint „saját kezűleg fogják kirángatni az Országgyűlésből a Jobbikot, ha olyanná válik, mint a többi párt”. A Magyar Gárda már csak létszámából fakadóan is ellenőrizhetetlen szervezet, a kitörés napi hungarista rendezvényeken való részvétele pedig mutatja, hogy egyes ügyekben messze jobbra áll a Jobbik „hivatalos” irányához képest."

You can read other juicy bits of information at the Nézőpont Intézet site:

http://www.nezopontintezet.hu/olvass_politikai.php?cid=324

[Mark]

Éva: "I wouldn't read too much into these results."

I don't completely agree - in other countries there is a whole literature on how to project national elections from local government by-elections with electorates of these kinds of size (and I can tell you from my deep and distant past analyzing election results for a UK political party, local election results were used extensively). They are not as reliable as an opinion poll with a decent sample (though sometimes they are) - but everyone believes they say something.

I don't think it is possible to dismiss this though as easily as one can read nothing. Let us suppose that the percentage changes were the result of the random decisions of tiny numbers of people. We would expect to see different patterns across individual results, so large Jobbik plus here, a large minus there. But we don't - the movements are very similar across all the results, even though they are in different parts of the country with very different political cultures and behaviours.

And it isn't just the Jobbik score for which there is a common pattern. They also suggest a FIDESZ national score in the upper 50s, and an MSZP one of between 17-19%. We can't tell anything about the chances of the small parties other than the LMP look as if Budapest-wide they are currently just under the 10% they will need in the capital to have a chance of getting over the hurdle (so their 5% is possible, but far from certain). And nothing at all about the chances of the MDF.

The risk of course is that the parliamentary election will have a very different pattern of differential turnout. But if this is the case then the parties with the most committed and the least undecided voters should do better. So, if they underestimate the scores of anyone it will be the MSZP, and they should overestimate the FIDESZ, Jobbik (and for the Budapest one) the LMP score. What they shouldn't be doing if the opinion polls are right is recording a fall in Jobbik support.

[whoever]

Mark, I think the issue of 'voter turnout' is treacherous territory, with lots of unpredictable elements. Incidentally I recall that at least 2 British Prime Ministers - Wilson and Brown - have obsessively followed local elections. Obviously many people believe in them as good indicators.

Remembering the 1992 UK election, with its massive turnout - many people in Labour had always believed that this would work to its advantage, that these were its own missing voters. But the people who ended up at the polls were, by and large, conservatives, so the big Labour vote (much larger than 2001 and 2005) was eclipsed by a lot of first-time, casual voters. And no-one really saw it coming.

Anecdotal evidence from talking to people in Hungary in 2010 shows a couple of contradictory trends. Firstly, Jobbik's strength seems to be concentrated in the 18-30 age group, notoriously hard for pollsters to capture accurately. According to this logic, the polls are under-reporting the Jobbik vote. What is more these people are probably determined to go to the polls, and will be hard to deflect.

Secondly, from talking to people, the MSZP vote amongst under 40s is very soft, and appears to be peeling off towards either apathy or perhaps partially to the LMP. The big question - and this affects everything in my opinion - is how many disaffected MSZP voters make it to the polling stations, and cast a vote for someone other than Fidesz.

With these contradictory impulses, I'd say that existing polls placing Fidesz well ahead, MSZP-Jobbik tied, could be quite accurate - and then the strange effects of the Hungarian electoral system could have another impact altogether. LMP risk massive disappointment if they fall short of 5%.

[PassingStranger]

I wouldn't get your hopes up just yet, judging from the responses to this satirical take on Jobbik scandals: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfxWyC4VITY&feature=player_embedded.

Populist challengers to the established order can become virtually unassailable. Whatever scandal erupts, no matter how sordid, it is likely to be blamed on 'persecution' by the elite. Even if not, their core supporters are likely to hate the established parties even more than the populists.

Ocsi is correct in noting that the many extremists and nutcases will become a liability to Jobbik. However, Jobbik is unlikely to implode as long as it has a strong leadership and can boast electoral victories. We can expect loads more revelations about crime, extremism, Russian links, nepotism once Jobbik are in parliament, by which time it will be too late. In any case this will not affect Jobbik core supporters. However, in the long run, it may make it more difficult for them to make inroads into Fidesz supporters, who will be less forgiving.

The bigger Jobbik become, the more likely Vona is to engineer some purge to silence the radical element, so that in four years time he can be a serious competitor to Orban. That is, if he is a clever politician. If they remain around 10-15%, it will be business as usual.

[Mark]

whoever: "Remembering the 1992 UK election, with its massive turnout - many people in Labour had always believed that this would work to its advantage, that these were its own missing voters."

As someone who campaigned in 1992 I could tell you quite a lot about this. All I'll say is that in the UK the absolute level of turnout is not important - the average turnout level for an election producing a Labour and Conservative win is the same. Differential turnout is what counts - and there is a long-term trend towards lower turnout among those working-class voters most likely to support Labour going back to the rises in unemployment in the mid-1970s. Furthermore opinion polls in every election between 1987 and 2001 underestimated the eventual Conservative vote - though only in 1992 this was this crucial to predicting who would form the government. Lastly though local government results predicted the 1997 election far better than the opinion polls, in the other elections this is distorted by the fact that in the UK at local level many supporters of other parties vote for the Liberal Democrats (because of their record of running competent administrations)thus leading them to overperform. You have to filter them for this effect.

On the trends - I'm not sure they are contradictory. Under 40s don't like the current established parties - and Jobbik is taking those on the right of the divide, while LMP is starting to take those on the left (and we know from the 2006 results that the younger of this group are not as enamoured with the right, as those towards the upper end of this age range). I couldn't find the surveys - but I seem to remember turnout among this group being lower (it rises with age through the older age groups).

The great flaw of most Hungarian opinion polls are the inaccuracies in their modelling of likely differential turnout. My point about the local by-elections is that if a group's voters are disproportionately enthusiastic about a party, then in an election characterised by low turnout you would expect that party to do disproportionately well. Jobbik should be polling beyond what opinion polls are saying they will get (clearly in the VI district the LMP were). If I were involved with their campaign I'd be worried that their performances are not only below their opinion poll scores, but where they were last year (while in actual fact, I'm not worried at all, more sort of cautiously encouraged!)

[whoever]

Contradictory in that whilst so far Jobbik have only registered actual success in elections with limited turnout, their support base is very secure, undercounted and rock-solid in various parts of the country. In this sense I am not contradicting you.

I am afraid cosmopolitan District VI won't be a counterweight for large chunks of the North-East. Jobbik voters and members in Edelény and Ózd really do mean business. At best, I hope that in Budapest they are marginalised (though I have concerns about many working-class areas) and that rural cities with different political traditions manage to find better ways to express discontent.

[Mark]

As I said a post ago on this thread I recalled reading that young people were more likely not to vote. It is covered in this survey which sheds interesting light on youth's political participation:

http://nol.hu/belfold/20100401-ez_a_generacio_eltunt_a_politikusok_szeme_elol

[whoever]

But this time round, which young people are more likely not to vote? I suspect it's those who have vague, leftish political ideas. The "Turul" crowd will definitely show up. I hope I'm wrong...

[Tihumachina]

Seriously, you guys think we would be better off with the current reign?
I have bad news for you, everything ends once!
This time it`s the "mutyis" time to disappear. People are angry and have a right to be, that is what jobbik strength is.
And no bad news on side taking media will change that. I have my doubts with jobbik, but they WILL get my vote, Worst case scenario they`ll be as bad as the rest.

[John T]

Tihumachina - "And no bad news on side taking media will change that. I have my doubts with jobbik, but they WILL get my vote, Worst case scenario they`ll be as bad as the rest."

What a damning indictment of Hungarian politics and, if your mood reflects the wider population, lack of ambition and foward thinking. But one point for you to ponder - they may match everone else for corruption, dodgy dealings etc. What they will also do is alienate a lot of people / governments and institutions outside of Hungary and that is a very big danger.

[John T]

I would add that Jobbik were always going to be setting themselves up for people to find dirt when they portrayed themselves as the party who were going to clean up politics and intimating they were "whiter than white". But clearly, they didn't check that they actually were. How very foolish of them!

Also, I think it's sad to say, that for a number of Hungarians, the anger about corruption / graft isn't because it is bad - I think that it is really anger coupled with frustration that they were unable to get a piece of the action themselves.

[Eva S. Balogh]

whoever: "The "Turul" crowd will definitely show up. I hope I'm wrong..."

I'm afraid you're right.

[Odin's lost eye]

In the matter of Jobbik , the Arabs have a saying which is “The Holier the City the more wicked its inhabitants’. So none of this news surprises me.

[Stefan]

I imagine the liberal news media in Europe have moved heaven and earth to find every scandal they can involving JOBBIK candidates and supporters. No different than the vermin in American media who go into attack mode against any candidate or party even slightly to the right of the Democratic (leftist) party.
And when all else fails, start making charges of "racism" and/or "anti-semitism."
May JOBBIK have great success, for a better Hungary