The Failure of the Hungarian Left
The Failure of the Hungarian Left
Adam Lebor: Jobbik’s Rise and the Failure of the Hungarian Left
It?s not often that liberals and those on the left will secretly admit to a sigh of relief that a center-right party has won an unprecedented victory, but it?s a surprisingly common view nowadays among the Budapest chattering classes.
After two rounds of voting, Fidesz, the center-right opposition party, has won a two-third majority in the Hungarian parliament (263 of 386 seats), which is enough to make constitutional changes. The Socialist vote collapsed, and the party won just fifty-nine seats, twelve seats more than the new far-right Party, Jobbik. One bright point was the minor triumph of a new green-liberal party, LMP, which stands for Lehet Mas A Politika, meaning ?Politics Can be Different.? LMP?s campaign posters were certainly daringly different, showing Roma and non-Roma children playing together, and the party won sixteen seats, which is impressive for a new organization that a year ago was unknown to most voters.
So why then did the Socialist vote collapse? It is noticeable that support for Jobbik, which campaigned on a platform of ?Hungary for Hungarians? and against ?Gypsy crime? and Israeli property developers, was strongest in the deprived eastern half of the country, which until last month was a rock-solid Socialist stronghold. The disastrous showing for the Socialists of course is not a purely Hungarian phenomenon: something similar has happened in Britain as support for the Labour Party has steadily eroded.
When the center-right appropriates many progressive policies, such as equal rights for women, environmental awareness and opposition to racism, the only argument left is who can best manage welfare capitalism. Voters seem to think that capitalist rather than Socialist parties can do a better job with that. And in Hungary, as in Britain, voter fatigue was also a factor. The Socialists had been in power for eight years, almost half of the time that the country has been a democracy since the collapse of Communism in 1990.
But there were also several specific factors at play here. First and foremost, the catastrophic failure of the Socialists to act like a democratic left-wing party. The party was elected on a platform of social justice and redistribution. Yet poverty is endemic, especially in the eastern half of the country. Large swathes are economic wastelands, unable to attract much needed foreign investment because of the government?s failure to invest in or build vital infrastructure.
Much of the leadership of the Socialist Party proclaimed themselves as modernizers, modeling themselves on New Labour in the 1990s. Ferenc Gyurcsany, who served as prime minister from 2004-2009, loved the company of Tony Blair and the hideous Peter Mandelson, Labour?s courtier of corporate interests. But like Blair and Mandelson, it seems Gyurcany loved money more than social democracy. He made his fortune during the 1990s, a period known as ?Wild Capitalism,? and is one of the country?s richest businessmen. During his tenure a thin elite of former Communist hacks turned millionaires?dubbed the ?Oligarchs? by the new Prime Minister Viktor Orban?became incredibly rich while poverty soared. Corruption also increased, and the Socialists? main legacy seems to the invention of the ?Nokia Box,? a cardboard container that is filled with banknotes rather than a mobile handset, to be presented to whichever government official needs to have his palm greased.
Meanwhile, away from the glitzy new bars and restaurants of downtown Budapest, the situation of the Roma steadily worsened, especially in eastern Hungary. Perhaps 800,000 of Hungary?s population of ten million are Roma, who face endemic discrimination. Roma children are often segregated from their non-Roma peers while still toddlers and placed into special schools for the mentally handicapped, even though they are not. Deprived of a proper education, they are let loose onto the labor market in their teens but lack meaningful employment skills.
The global recession and the collapse of the state-owned industries that guaranteed work mean that a whole generation has grown up on welfare benefits and sometimes drifts into petty crime. The complete failure to meaningful tackle the dire situation of the Roma–other than a few tokenistic programs–is perhaps the Socialists? most shameful legacy. It was these corrupt, self-interested business tycoons masquerading as leftists?not any ingrained Hungarian hunger for far-right politics?that opened the door to Jobbik.
