Right-wing Conundrum

Will the right in Hungary end up snatching defeat from the jaws of victory?

At first glance, it appears that the parliamentary election in Hungary, slated for April 11th this year, is a mundane affair. For most, the outcome is a foregone conclusion. The largest opposition party, the Young Democrats (FIDESZ), a front organisation made up of broken and dying right wing parties - among them the Christian Democrats, the Smallholders, and renegade members from the Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF), to name just a few - has a commanding lead in the polls and looks as if it will be able to secure a majority of votes on its own and thus form the next government.

In conjunction with this, the ruling Socialists have degraded themselves so thoroughly through corruption and mismanagement of the economy that no serious analyst gives them much of a chance; indeed many party members appear resigned to fate, and their focus for the election is not so much on winning but on losing as few seats as possible. Meanwhile the two other smaller parties which made it to parliament the last time, the liberal Free Democrats (SZDSZ) on the left and the conservative MDF on the right, have likewise so tarnished themselves through scandal and political infighting that even running together (a partnership that in itself is riddled with scandal and infighting) they don’t seem to stand much of a chance of even making it into parliament this time.

Apart from two new political parties, the LMP (a green alternative party) and the Civil Movement (a party with roots among several NGOs), both of whom will be lucky enough to garner enough votes to even make it into parliament, the only other rival to the FIDESZ is the far-right JOBBIK party. Although some feel that the JOBBIK will actually fare better than the Socialists, they nevertheless won't be strong enough to pose a serious threat to the FIDESZ. Hence, it would appear that the FIDESZ is on its way to a safe and easy victory.

Or is it? For the FIDESZ, the importance of this election is not simply winning but winning with a two-thirds majority. With such power, it would not have to rely on any other party for support in order to push through anything it wants. In particular, the FIDESZ has plans to make some constitutional changes that it feels is long overdue. In addition to this, it has made tackling corruption a main priority. This means that it would need to be able to suspend the political immunity of anyone suspected of wrongdoing, something which requires a two-thirds majority in parliament.

One of the main reasons a person becomes a politician in Hungary is to secure political immunity

Without a doubt, over the past few months corruption has featured high on the minds of most. Yet so far only a fraction of cases have been brought before the courts. Many others have been thwarted because those involved have political immunity. Indeed, it appears that one of the main reasons a person becomes a politician in Hungary is to secure political immunity. In this election alone some fifty individuals are running for parliament in the hope of winning a seat and thus secure themselves protection from the long arm of the law. The list of refugees from justice includes not only petty criminals, but also those charged with major crimes such as fraud and embezzlement. In fact, the Hungarian political system is such that even prisoners have the right to run for parliament from the comfort of their cells. What happens if one actually gets elected is still unknown.

All this not only reinforces the common view that politicians are a bunch of criminals, but has also played into the hands of the far right. The JOBBIK has claimed that it would abolish the notion of political immunity altogether, claiming that this aspect to democracy has been systematically abused over the past 20 years. This, despite the fact that one of the leaders of the JOBBIK, Kristina Morvai, recently came under fire for trying to use her political immunity as a member of the European Parliament in order to wiggle out of paying a fine for illegal parking.

There is a fear among some, especially those on the left, that if the FIDESZ does gain an absolute majority in parliament then it would use its position to launch a witch-hunt against its opponents. Some even talk of an era of show trials using the present climate of corruption as a backdrop.

Prior to the official start to the election campaign, polls had shown that the ability of the FIDESZ to secure an absolute majority as a distinct possibility. Since then, however, this massive support for the FIDESZ has slowly but surely eroded. Presently, polls put the support for the FIDESZ at or slightly below 60%.

Ironically, this poses the biggest challenge for the FIDESZ, one which could turn their election victory into a defeat. Since the promises and expectations of the FIDESZ hinges on its ability to secure an absolute majority, failure to do so could eventually shatter the party to pieces. Like all front organisations, internal pressures ultimately lead the component political forces to break away. The same was true for its precursor, the MDF, as well as for the Civic Forum of the former Czechoslovakia. Without an absolute majority and the ability to push through the policies and programs it has been promising, this political implosion is bound to occur.

Most are unwilling to make any further sacrifices for vague promises

In many ways, some within the FIDESZ already sense rough times ahead. As a result, a perceptible shift in party propaganda has begun through the use of vague campaign slogans. Although election campaigns in Hungary are usually full of catchy slogans and images that are short on substance, this year’s election campaign is even more so. Not only this, the FIDESZ has refrained from debating in public for fear of making promises that they can't keep. Moreover, the FIDESZ has begun to hint that they will need at least two or three terms in order to correct what the Socialists had ruined over the past eight years.

Yet time isn't on the side of the FIDESZ. People are desperate for quick and easy solutions. What is more, having experienced austerity programs and falling real wages year after year over the past few years, most are unwilling to make any further sacrifices for vague promises that are slated for a distant and unknown future. In effect, people want positive results and they want them soon.

This doesn’t mean that if the FIDESZ gains an absolute majority that it will be able to deliver these results. Failing to capture a two-thirds majority, however, would almost certainly doom the party to failure. Not in the least because in order to push through anything in parliament requiring a two-thirds majority, it would have to rely on support from one of two arch rivals: the Socialists on the left and the JOBBIK on the far right. This means that the party may end up compromising itself on several issues. For instance, in order to garner support from the Socialists the issue of political immunity and the party's anti-corruption stance would have to be toned down; conversely, in order to secure a measure of support from the JOBBIK the government would then have to risk breaching some the agreements it had made with the IMF.

The only alternative between two extremes?

It’s this dilemma which could ultimately lead to defeat for the FIDESZ in the long run. The party has insisted that it's the only alternative between two extremes: the Socialists on the extreme left and the JOBBIK on the extreme right. Each extreme, meanwhile, accuses the FIDESZ of being in cohorts with the other.

Although most pundits feel that the FIDESZ will win the election with a majority of between 55% and 60%, it’s still not unthinkable that the right-wing party will fall just short of securing a simple majority. Polls in Hungary have been notorious in the past for being wrong. In fact, during the 2002 election when it was assumed that the FIDESZ would win the election easily, with all major polls putting them ahead of their rivals, in the end the right-wing actually lost the election. A similar situation occurred in 2006; what should have been an easy victory for the FIDESZ instead turned out to be an embarrassing defeat.

If the unimaginable somehow does occur, the FIDESZ will then have some uncomfortable choices to make. It could try to form a minority government; however the likelihood of this being a stable government is slim. Another option would be to enter into a grand coalition with the Socialists on the pretext that it was the only democratic option available in face of the growing power of the far-right. Such a move would no doubt signal an end to the FIDESZ as many would regard them as traitors and closet communists, akin to the SZDSZ who at the beginning prided themselves on their vociferous anti-communist rhetoric.

The only other alternative would be to enter into an uneasy coalition with the far-right JOBBIK. This would no doubt help to strengthen the left in Hungary, many of whom are already wary of the country's apparent shift to the right. In addition to this, it would reinforce the Socialist view of the FIDESZ as a JOBBIK-LITE version of the far-right.

While it is still up in the air what the FIDESZ would do if it failed to secure even a simple majority, one thing is for certain: such a situation would throw the country into political chaos. This, in turn, would have a ripple effect throughout the EU. Despite proclamations to the contrary, the Hungarian economy is in tatters; the last thing it needs at this point in time is a sense of political instability that would lead private capital to flee the country. Such a situation would no doubt spawn an economic crisis which would then have a knock-on effect in Brussels which is still reeling from the effects of the economic crisis in Greece.

Given the past failures of pundits and observers to accurately predict election results in Hungary, the present election is anything but a mundane affair. True, the right-wing FIDESZ will almost certainly win the election, but how large this victory will be remains to be seen. If it fails to secure even a simple majority, then this victory could ultimately lead to a complete and utter defeat, and signal an end to the FIDESZ altogether.