Eastern European Politics

Oh, this is fantastic. They're gonna bring themselves down if they won't go for an all-out dictatorship.

If they do, I believe that they'll bring themselves down anyway, but a bit later and much harder.

According to a public poll, Orbán's support has dropped 12% in the last month - that is, he lost more than 900,000 supporters in one month. No such thing has happened in Hungarian politics since the multi-party system resumed in 1989 - though ironically, Fidesz experienced the exact opposite of this back in 1992, when their popular support jumped the exact same value between the same percents (38%-26% now, 26%-38% in 1992).

More protests! Finish him off!

It's crunch time for Hungary.

There's more. Orbán's popularity is currently in a triple-tie for first place with that of Gábor Vona, the head of Jobbik. Jobbik is currently hovering at 15% support.

68% says things in Hungary are going badly. Even every sixth Fidesz loyalist shares this opinion.

For the question of whether they would go vote if there were elections now, 41% says yes, 23% maybe, 12% maybe not and 22% definitely not. The last group is one of the reasons why Orbán got reelected, as the indecisiveness and inability of the traditional opposition to present a viable alternative caused a sizable portion of non-Fidesz voters to turn away from politics in disgust. Jobbik is the only real alternative and they know that very well.

Here's a chart for current party support; blue means whole population, orange means only voters, brown means only voters who are sure they'll vote for that party.

edited 10th Dec '14 11:02:05 AM by amitakartok

So if Hungary gets rid of Orban, the replacement is Arrow Cross 2.0? Terrific.

I wouldn't say that. Jobbik doesn't have enough popular support for a majority and no existing party would enter a coalition with them.

Besides, why is everyone so worried about Jobbik becoming fascist? They don't tolerate that kind of crap, having kicked out quite a few extremists from among their ranks who wanted to take the party in that direction.

edited 10th Dec '14 11:14:29 AM by amitakartok

Maybe because they tend to expose similar(-ly bad) political views?

Well, I'm not going to hold much belief in those accusations unless Jobbik itself is caught red-handed, instead of a single party member doing something shitty. Using someone's political affiliation as excuse to say bad things about one party or another is general occurrence in Hungary.

The Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party that controlled the country during the Soviet occupation never disbanded, just dropped Workers' from the name to become the very same MSZP that's still in existence today, albeit greatly weakened when they got busted for inaction via Engineered Public Confession that sparked the 2006 protests. Why should Jobbik get negative special treatments if the commies didn't get it either?

edited 10th Dec '14 12:19:56 PM by amitakartok

By the way, a left-wing politician - one of the candidates for the position of parliament representative of Veszprém - wrote on Facebook that he believes Orbán's current plan is to get himself elected to President of the Republic for up to eight years (the position is pretty much ceremonial as per the constitution, with no real executive power). In this guy's words, Orbán would then move into the Buda Castle for a hundred billion HUF (about 403,584,000 USD) and become "an extended-authority President of the Republic without a republic". Let's just say that not everyone is skeptic about his opinion (and I'm not talking about myself).

The Veszprém election is held because the former representative became the EU Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth, and thus had to step down from his former position. If Fidesz' candidate loses, they'll lose their parliament majority - but according to a survey, the left would need a miracle to defeat Fidesz in the election, even with the recent drop in Fidesz' popularity. On the other hand, this survey also reveals that if the left were to enter a coalition with Jobbik, they would utterly slam Fidesz into the ground.

edited 11th Dec '14 5:58:53 AM by amitakartok

Rosiya is back Mr Siemoniak said Russia was "not preparing to attack" but it was testing Nato defences, which "does not serve to build good relationships and trust". A bit of a suspiciously specific denial.

Because if I've learned any thing from my left wing class mates it's that THE RIGHT WING IS EVIL IN CAHOOTS WITH TE EVUL BUSHES TO TAKE OVER TA WORL...Illuminate. On a more serious note I think it has to do with the perception of,as John Oliver put it, "when Europe goes right it goes right through Belgium."

edited 11th Dec '14 12:36:11 PM by JackOLantern1337

*sigh*... it's been nearly seventy years already. When will people stop Godwinning at the slightest opportunity?

Anyway, something else to digest. Jobbik's vice president is very much not amused after a recent incident in Romania. You see, Romania enacted a resolution back in 2001 that bans singing the national anthem of another country in Romania unless it takes place at an event involving the other country's official representatives. The local Hungarian minority understandably didn't like this (they've been singing the Hungarian national anthem at public events as far back as 1990) and in 2002, they managed to get the government to enact another resolution that makes an exception for minorities celebrating national holidays. There haven't been any problems about the issue since then.

Now however, the prefect of Covasna county took issue with the Hungarian anthem being sung on the June 4 commemoration of the Treaty of Trianon (the reason why the minority in question is living within Romania's borders in the first place) and fined the offending party 5000 RON (~$1400 USD), citing the lack of an official Hungarian representative as the reason. The president of MPP (the party who organized the event and got fined) is of the opinion that the mere existence of such a law 25 years after Romania became democratic "signals a serious deficit in democracy", as well as that the prefect is deliberately trying to provoke the minority... which is not baseless an accusation as it sounds, as he also pointed out that the prefect advocated for peaceful coexistence back when he took the position. Could be just the usual politician-lying-for-PR stuff but considering the sheer amount of bad blood between ethnicities in the region... it's not completely out of the question that the prefect guy indeed did that deliberately.

Jobbik's vice president (exact translation):

As public opinion in Hungary, some people are royally pissed that the EU lets Romania gets away with this. It's not just Jobbik; a major source of the common folk's general anti-EU sentiment in Hungary is that in the decade since Hungary became a member state, the EU has never intervened in defense of Hungarian minorities getting harassed. Ever.

edited 12th Dec '14 8:21:44 PM by amitakartok

Could Fidesz kick out Orban and replace him with some second rank member to lead the party or is the party not split enough for that to happen?

Not going to happen, I'm afraid. Since its formation, no one in Fidesz ever contested Orbán for the position of prime minister.

And now they've gone completely off their rocker: the 2015 revision for the tax law explicitly and literally allows municipalities to tax anything not already being taxed by the government. Yes, you read that right. Municipalities are already announcing taxes for owning land (which the government already commented about, saying that they never thought about that one before; the ministry of agriculture isn't very pleased and might even forbid it), taxing high-rise buildings and garages, as well as agricultural vehicles.

The mayor of Mindszent came out and said that he believes it is a moral imperative for those who own more to pay more taxes, saying that "those who God gave more should give more themselves"; he also said that he's fully aware that 70-80% of the locals cannot be taxed any further and thus won't be taxed. The mayor of Szirmabesenyő said that this is a necessary evil, as the municipalities receive very little government money so if they want to develop or even maintain their current level of development, they need a new source; he also said that they considered exemptions/discounts but decided not to bother, as everyone would just be looking for loopholes to avoid paying at all.

Surprise surprise, another protest took place today. This time the target was the aforementioned fiscal agenda. One spokesman even used the pun, "this isn't őszöd ("your autumn") but it is Őszödöd ("your Őszöd", referring to the Engineered Public Confession that toppled the government in 2006)".

There will be a parliament voting session on Monday about a lot of things, including this fiscal agenda and making Sunday a compulsory no-work day enforced with fines (which even the Christian Democrats, Fidesz' fuckbuddies in crime, protested against). Organizers say that the Monday vote will be the moment of truth for the next 20-30 years, and that there might be another protest on Tuesday, depending on the result of the vote. Both the parliament session and the Tuesday protest will be the last ones in this year.

edited 14th Dec '14 9:23:40 AM by amitakartok

x4 The Left will never stop beating the "all right-wingers are Nazis" drum any more than the Right will stop beating the "all left-wingers are Commies" drum. Too useful.

Don't know if you guys heard about it, but that Goodfriend guy who informed the Hungarian government about the corruption-provoked travel ban? The head of the customs office (one of the people banned from entering the US) has sued him for libel, demanding five million in damages.

However, Orbán pretty much blackmailed her into doing so, publicly announcing that he'll have her fired and replaced if she doesn't sue immediately. Because of that, a former politician reported Orbán to the police for committing coercion as declared in 195.§ of the Hungarian criminal codex. I don't think anything will happen, though; from the way the police scrambled to begin the investigation into the libel lawsuit, it's clear whose side they're on.

As expected, the parliament voted yay on many issues the protesters wanted nay. Major mass protest in front of the parliament building, demanding the government's immediate resignation. Riot police deployed tear gas and pushed the crowd out of the square.

Sign used at the protest. There was also another sign, reading "Mr. McCain, you are right"; McCain has since posted it on his Facebook page.

Next protest on January 2.

Something pretty hilarious: Orbán ate chocolate (sent by shop owners begging him to repel the new tobacco law; he voted yes and ate the chocolate anyway) during yesterday's voting session but left the wrappings there. After the session, the wrappings were snatched by an opposition representative who promptly put it up onto an auction site, saying that he will only give it to the most devout Fidesz loyalist and that loyalists should move fast, lest it ends up in "unworthy hands, like those who deny that Fidesz lowered the cost of living, or those of American diplomats".

That sounds like something out of The Onion.

Good, good. May the protesters remain strong and preferably organized.

edited 16th Dec '14 2:45:27 PM by Quag15

Jesus, that's the kind of "opposition" shenanigans you'd expect to find in Russia or Mubarak-era Egypt. That's not so much the loyal opposition as the tame opposition.

A big thanks to amitakartok for keeping us all posted about Hungary. I mean it.

There were protests in 20 other cities as well, with the same demands.

Police has confirmed that they deployed tear gas and pepper spray to keep the protesters from breaking through the defensive formation between them and the parliament building's stairs. Not that they needed to announce it, as the act was caught on camera. Notice the EU flags the crowd is waving; one point of contention the crowd has with the parliament is that the house speaker ordered for the EU flag to be taken down from the parliament building on the grounds that the building is not doing EU business, therefore the flag has no place on it. Radical, yes - but still better than that former Jobbik guy who threw an EU flag out of the building via an upper-floor window a few years ago (and which got him expelled from Jobbik almost immediately).

Fidesz also seems to be having some internal fractures, as at least one parliament representative explicitly voted against his party's opinion on Monday.

edited 16th Dec '14 4:58:20 PM by amitakartok

The EU should be doing more to get rid of these guys. Then again one of the major complaints against the EU has been the alleged influence it has on member states' internal politics...

From the local perspective, the EU is seen as mostly-take-and-no-give, with a side order of double standard concerning the treatment of Hungarian minorities in Slovakia and Romania. The reason why the crowd is rallying behind their flag anyway is because Orbán is blatantly anti-EU. Hell, Orbán often likes to present himself as a patriot fighting political battles against the EU, America, the IMF, the multinational corporations, the foreign-funded civil organizations... pretty much against everyone, for the country's sake. He's creating new enemies all the time.

Speaking of foreign-funded civil organizations, Orbán wants these to be registered on a special list in order to know who is actually behind them, citing the US as example... except it's not the US who has such a law, it's Russia. Critical Research Failure or Blatant Lies?

I read an analysis yesterday that explicitly compared the current events to the 2006 protests that ended up deposing the PM via vote of no confidence, allowing Fidesz to win the next elections with a landslide - except this time, Fidesz is the ones getting hit hard and with the opposition fragmented and in shambles, there is no alternative to flock to.

Which, the article says, presents the danger of Jobbik moving in to fill the power vacuum.

edited 16th Dec '14 5:08:59 PM by amitakartok

Well damn. Got any good analyses of just what Jobbik is up to? They made a lot of people nervous about a year ago or so; you'd think they were Golden Dawn, the Hungarian remix, but given how Orban is definitively driving Fidesz off the cliff, it might be helpful to see what the other big party name in Hungarian politics is doing.

Compared to Golden Dawn, Jobbik are the paragons of democracy. Sure, they did do things like holding a protest rally against the World Jewish Congress holding its 2013 session in Hungary (claiming that the WJC was deliberately taunting the strengthening Jobbik with the move) and had their own militia at one point (until court had it disbanded, claiming that it violates the minority rights declared by the constitution - even though the Guard only did marches and rallies, with no violent activity) but in general, they keep quiet and nonviolent. No sense rocking the boat, I guess.

edited 16th Dec '14 6:27:44 PM by amitakartok

In other news, the Polish government approved the expenditure of 16 million zloty from the state budget on a megachurch. Formally, it's not meant to be spent on the megachurch, but on the museum of John Paul II and cardinal Wyszynski that will, coincidentally, be located in that megachurch, and of course run by the Church. And that happens for, like, tenth year in a row - the previous ruling party actually had the gall to spend as much as 40 million in a given year.

I want to lead a violent coup against the government. Hell, I can even confuse them by taking out the right-wing opposition first.