Two controversial Jobbik appointments: Tamás Sneider and Dóra Dúró

Today Jobbik finalized the composition and officers of its parliamentary delegation. The caucus consists of 23 people. Just as in the last parliament, Gábor Vona, party chairman, will be heading the group and just as before he will have five deputies.

Jobbik nominated Tamás Sneider to be one of the deputies to the president of the parliament, who will most likely once again be László Kövér. This nomination is very controversial and sparked a slew of objections in the last week or so. Even Bence Rétvári, undersecretary in the Ministry of Administration and Justice, remarked that perhaps Jobbik should “rethink” the nomination. Well, Jobbik thought long and hard about it and decided to stick with its candidate.

So, what’s wrong with Tamás Sneider other than being a member of a neo-Nazi party?

Way back in August 2009 I wrote a post about Hungarian skinheads. There I briefly mentioned a skinhead cell in Eger. The group was  infamous because, under the leadership of Tamás Sneider, known in those days as Roy, it was involved in Roma beatings on the streets of Eger. That was sometime in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Sneider later joined Jobbik and became a member of the Eger city council.

During his time on the council he was arrested by the police because of a family dispute. As we learned from Magyar Nemzet, just before the 2010 election, Sneider, who by then was #9 on Jobbik’s party list for the 2010 election, 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 his share of the family fortune 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. In light of the above, it is especially ironic that as a freshman MP Sneider was deputy chairman of  the parliamentary committee that dealt with, among other things, “family affairs.”

There were rumors in the last few days that the Fidesz delegation might vote against the appointment of Sneider due to his skinhead past. But that doesn’t seem likely. Today Antal Rogán, who was re-elected leader of the Fidesz delegation, indicated that Fidesz will not veto the nomination. “Each party must take political responsibility for its nominees. We would not like to choose among opposition nominees. There might be several nominees with whom we disagree. After all, we had a deputy president who was a party member in the old regime.”

I would have been very surprised if Fidesz, especially before the EP election, would have instigated a political fight over a Jobbik nomination. The reality is that Jobbik did exceedingly well in the last two elections and legitimately became a parliamentary party with all the privileges and prerogatives of that position. Perhaps Vona’s youth organization, so warmly supported by Viktor Orbán, should have been stopped as soon as it espoused an anti-Semitic and anti-Roma ideology. It is too late now.

Jobbik, just like all other parties, can send delegates to the various parliamentary committees. By law, the chairmanship of the committee on national security goes to someone delegated by one of the opposition parties. The position was held in the last four years by Zsolt Molnár of MSZP, and MSZP once again claimed the post. But this year, just as four years ago, Jobbik also wanted this important committee chairmanship. Four years ago their nominee, Gábor Staudt, didn’t receive clearance. This time around their nominee was the party chairman himself, Gábor Vona. But handing over the national security chairmanship to Jobbik would have been too much even for Fidesz. Instead, it supported MSZP, saying that by custom the largest opposition party is entitled to that position.

Having lost the chairmanship of the committee on national security, Jobbik insisted on another important post: chairmanship of the committee on education and culture. This time Fidesz supported their claim. An outcry followed. How could Fidesz give that critically important committee to Jobbik? “Our children’s future and Hungarian culture in the hands of a neo-Nazi party?” —asked Magyar Narancs.

Jobbik’s nominee for the post is Dóra Duró, wife of the notorious Előd Novák, who is most likely a member of the group responsible for kuruc.info. Here are a few choice (quasi-literate) sentences uttered by Dóra Dúró on matters of education. “Jobbik’s educational policy does not consider equality and integration as real values, but rather the fulfillment of people’s mission.” According to her, “from here on, the truth of educators must be unquestioned.”

Ildikó Lendvai, former MSZP chairman, commented on the probable appointment of Dúró this way: “Finally there is a seal on the alliance of Fidesz and Jobbik.”  The ideological roots of the two parties are similar in many respects, and over the past four years their views on cultural matters were practically identical. Fidesz often borrowed Jobbik’s ideas. For example, the removal of Mihály Károlyi’s statue was originally a Jobbik demand. The idea of resurrecting the Horthy regime also came from Jobbik. It was the extreme right that wanted to include Albert Wass and József Nyirő in the curriculum. And Jobbik was the first to propose the nationalization of schools, segregated schools, and the centralization of textbooks.

Dóra Dúró and her infamous laptop: “The nation lives in the womb”

As for Dóra Dúró. The Dúró-Novák duo’s motto is “Be fruitful and multiply!”  She is only 27 years old but is pregnant with their third child. I read somewhere that she considers four children to be the minimum for a patriotic Hungarian family. Producing children seems to be a very important, if not the most important duty of a Hungarian woman. See the picture on the cover of her laptop: “The nation lives in the womb.”

She, like her husband, is a rabid anti-Semite. About a week ago a journalist asked Novák why the couple doesn’t take part in events remembering the Holocaust. His answer was: “We remember only genocides that actually happened.” Denial of the Holocaust is now a crime in Hungary, but as far as I know nothing happened to Előd Novák. Except that his like-minded wife will be chairing the parliamentary committee on education and culture.