BUDAPEST Hungary has a feverish election day today. The setup couldn’t be more electronic.
The right-wing Fidesz party and the prime minister Viktor Orbán apply for the fourth consecutive extension.
The opposition of the six parties is trying to seize power by concentrating all its forces on one candidate, i.e Peter Mark-Zayn behind.
The outcome of the parliamentary elections will begin to clear late in the evening.
How are you? Here are five key points from Sunday that could be a turning point in Hungary.
1) Orbán is a genuinely popular folk
For the Finns, Prime Minister Orbán appears to be a power-thirsty and power-hungry thinner in power with the EU, who is moving Hungary step by step towards sole or rare power.
His government has led Hungary since 2010 and earlier in 1998-2002.
Power is not just based on strict occasions. Orbán enjoys genuine, widespread popularity.
– We have been belittling Orban for a very long time. He is a charismatic leader and one of the most skilled politicians in Europe, says the Hungarian researcher Heino Nyyssönenwho is a docent in political history at the University of Turku.
In the video, Orbán flames the slaughtered pig and removes the skin from it with accustomed grips. A crowd around sips Palinka liquor and gasps for Orbán’s tubing.
– Orbán profiles himself as a rural man who opposes the elite. In the eyes of the Hungarians, one could say a little humorously that he is a bastard, but a bastard who takes his own side, Nyyssönen continues.
In rural and small towns, the popularity is strong, but in Budapest as many as three-quarters are against Orban. During the election, Orbán has directed billions of subsidies from the state wallet to its supporters.
Families with children have received tax refunds and retirees have received an extra monthly pension. People under the age of 25 have been exempt from income taxes, employment programs have been set up for the rural poor and public sector wages have been raised.
At least the deeds do not diminish Orbán’s popularity. But they gnaw at the state coffers, and critics find it brazen that the ruling party is spending state money in bulk during the election to prop up its power.
– Football stadiums are being built, but hospitals are deteriorating, Nyyssönen says.
2) The “Unholy Alliance” challenges Orbán with a now or never attitude
The power of Fidesz is so concretized that the opposition has joined forces in a way that would otherwise be impossible.
The political spectrum of as many as six party fronts extends from side to side. There are two big parties involved, namely the Social Democrats and the ex-far-right Jobbik, and four liberal, green or otherwise just opposing Orban.
It is not wrong to talk about an unholy alliance, namely that political opponents are now cooperating with only one goal in mind: the overthrow of Orbán.
Last autumn, Péter Marki-Zay, a wanderer who had been working in the bar in Finland in the 1990s, was elected the prime ministerial candidate.
Márki-Zay is a Conservative Christian and far from basic liberal, but the red-green wing of the opposition has also accepted him as a candidate. Márki-Zay is expected to hit a wedge in Orbán’s supporters.
The centralization was successful in some places in the 2019 local elections, when the opposition took over the mayoral chairs in Budapest and several other areas. Fidesz remained the strongest, but success encouraged the opposition.
– In 2019, Orbán and Fidesz woke up to the fact that large cities could be lost, says the head of research at Eastern Europe at the Alexander Institute at the University of Helsinki. Katalin Miklóssy.
According to Miklóssy, Fidesz has transferred state assets to foundations and taken over the banking sector, large companies and more than 400 media companies. It has the officials of its choice as president, prosecutor, and head of the Constitutional Court.
The intention is to retain power even if the opposition wins.
3) Orbán is a friend of Putin – is Russia’s brutal attack eating or not?
With the President of Russia Vladimir Putin has had one friend above all in the EU: Orbán.
Orbán has supported Putin and Putin’s Orbania. Thanks to Orbán, Hungary has received exceptionally cheap natural gas contracts.
Among other things, Hungarians have read on the orange background (the color of Fidesz) how much money is being saved thanks to Orbán.
But Russia’s invasion of Ukraine changed everything.
– Orbán is in big broth because of the war, Nyyssönen says.
Suddenly one would think that friendship with Putin is declining Orbán’s popularity. But it could be otherwise.
Hungary has supported all EU sanctions on Russia and Orbán has made its skin a guarantor of peace.
Hungary is Ukraine’s border neighbor. Orbán has pushed through the idea that opposition-backed weapons aid to Ukraine threatened to drag Hungary into the war. The false narrative may go through, Nyyssönen says.
– Orbán is in the hands of the state media and is skilfully trying to portray Fidesz as a peace party and an opposition war party.
It is also about trust. A voter who trusts Orbán will not be cracked for a moment.
4) The electoral system is unfair
The basis for Fidesz’s power is not electoral fraud, although such allegations have been made.
After the 2018 election, 100,000 people marched in Budapest, accusing Orban of cheating – albeit without clear grounds.
This week from Romania found in landfill (go to another service) a bag of already filled post-election votes for the Hungarian election that had been partially burned. Fidesz and the opposition have blamed each other for who may have burned the sack.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) is present at the elections with a full number of observers, which is an exceptional measure in the EU.
Fidesz has also changed the electoral system to its advantage.
Constituencies and voting methods have been changed so that less than 50% of the vote can be won by a two-thirds majority in Parliament.
This was the case in 2018, when the electoral alliance of Fidesz and its Christian partner, the KDNP, won 133 seats in the Hungarian Parliament, the size of the Finnish Parliament, with a 49 per cent share of the vote. The number of seats left the winners free to do almost anything in Parliament.
Even without cheating, the situation is almost entirely on Fidesz’s side.
– The most important thing is not whether the elections are free, but that they are unfair in many ways, Nyyssönen concludes.
5) Orbán has a neoconservative future
What happens if Orbán wins?
– Orbán wants to enter the history books by creating a new era. He already has money, and from power he has got everything he can. Now he is working to build a neoconservative future and is trying to prove that the liberal era is over, Miklóssy says.
What if the opposition wins?
– They know that deep cooperation is not easy. They would focus on restoring the system to democracy, Nyyssönen says.
The moment of opposition is here and now. Is Márki-Zay’s charisma enough or does Orbán hold its own?
– Opinion polls are not reliable. I do not think Fidesz will get a two-thirds majority. A smaller victory would mean that they would have to negotiate in a parliament that has hitherto been in the position of a rubber stamp, Miklóssy says.
What is the real hair of the opposition? Is the change from the far right to the more liberal, for example, a genuine or temporary electorate for the Jobbik party?
No one knows, says Nyyssönen, and quotes Professor Emeritus Kari Palonen the idea of how unions are always situational.
– Even in a nuclear vote, the votes of the fascists are counted, Nyyssönen quotes.
– It is only through the situation in Hungary that I really understand what that means.
You can discuss the topic from the link below. The debate will be open until Monday at 12 noon.