“Is Hungary being ruined by a scoundrel or a fanatic?” A debate

Bálint Magyar’s interview describing the Orbán regime as a post communist mafia state made a big splash in Hungary. The phrases “mafia government” and “mafia state” spread like wildfire. Readers may recall that I gave a fairly detailed summary of this interview in three parts under the title “Bálint Magyar: Viktor Orbán’s post-communist mafia state.”

Given the Hungarian penchant for open discussion it was not surprising that soon enough a critique of Magyar’s thesis appeared in the same publication, Élet és Irodalom, in which the original interview had been published. Gábor Horn, the author of the critique, is, like Magyar, a former SZDSZ politician. Horn disagrees with Magyar in fundamental ways. A week later, Horn’s article was analyzed by Mihály Andor, a journalist whose articles and short pieces often appear on the Internet site Galamus.

I will leave a discussion of  the merits of Horn’s arguments to the readers. I’m sure that an animated debate of his and Arnold’s arguments will follow. Here I will merely add a few new pieces of information that might be relevant to the discussion.

Gábor Horn considers Magyar’s analysis a good starting point, but he himself sees Viktor Orbán and his regime “fundamentally differently.” After briefly outlining Magyar’s thesis, Horn says that Magyar is on the “wrong track.” His findings are the “result of wrong perception.” Because “the situation is worse.” It would be better if Hungary were a well organized mafia state. Mafias work rationally.  Mafia leaders want to gain maximum profit, they leave those who don’t break the rules alone, they are interested in prosperity.

But, Horn claims, “the government of Orbán is anything but rational. … Viktor Orbán is not a godfather, not an anti-Semite, not a racist as so many people want to portray him. None of that is true.” He is not a mafioso, although Horn admits that people close to him “managed to receive considerable economic advantages.”

Instead, “Viktor Orbán truly believes in his own version of a unique third road for Hungarian economic development.” Here Orbán echoes those populist/narordnik/népies writers and ideologists of the 1930s who thought in terms of a third road, something between socialism and capitalism, that would make Hungary a prosperous, mostly agrarian state.

Source: artsjournal.com

So, Horn continues, the “mafia-like signs” are not the bases of Orbán’s system; they are only “collateral expenses” of the real goal. After all, Orbán knows that politics costs money. He “tolerates these political expenses but neither individual enrichment, money in general, nor economic gain is the goal of his politics.” This (I guess the mafia-like behavior) is “an important instrument in the service of the GREAT BELIEF.”

In Horn’s opinion it this zealous belief in an ideal economic and social system that drives him to take on the European Union, the IMF, the multinational companies, the banks, and everything else that stands in his way. Just as he truly believes that the old-fashioned school system serves his vision because it will lay the foundations for a better world. He is doing all this not because of dictatorial impulses but because he is convinced that “individual ideas are common fallacies and fallacies lead to blind alleys.” Orbán truly believes that the steps he is taking will lead to “the salvation of the country.” They are “not for his individual enrichment and his family’s economic supremacy.” Horn quickly adds that naturally Orbán has no objection to “doing well himself, but that is only a secondary question for him.”

Horn is also certain that “not for a moment does Orbán think that we don’t live in a democratic country. He just thinks that interpreting the law according to his will also serves the interests of the people. As all followers of the third-road ideology, he moves in a system completely outside the realm of reality, except in his case he manages to receive unlimited authority to execute his ideas.”

This is more or less the gist of Gábor Horn’s argument which, it seems, didn’t convince everyone. It certainly didn’t convince Mihály Andor. After reading Bálint Magyar’s interview and Gábor Horn’s article, he posed the question whether “the country is being ruined by a scoundrel or a fanatic.” That question can be answered definitively only by looking into Viktor Orbán’s head. Since we cannot do that, we have to judge from his actions, and from his actions “a cynical picture emerges of a man who wants to grab and hold onto power at any price.”

Andor outlines a number of Orbán’s moves that aim at sowing hatred between different groups in order to ensure his own unlimited power. If it were only great faith that motivates him, he wouldn’t have to turn man against man. When it comes to ideology, the originally atheist Orbán “paid off the churches that would take up the work of educating obedient servants of the state.”

If Orbán is not primarily interested in his own enrichment, what should we do with all the information that has been gathered over the last ten or fifteen years about the shady dealings of the extended family? Andor finds it difficult to believe that Orbán’s attitude toward money is no more than “collateral expenses in the service of politics.” Andor, like so many others, including Ferenc Gyurcsány and Mátyás Eörsi, believes that the Orbán family’s enrichment is one of the principal aims of the prime minister of Hungary.

Andor brings up a recent news item. Lőrinc Mészáros, mayor of Felcsút and chairman of the Puskás Academy, just took out 800 million forints worth of dividends from his construction company that employs 250 men. I wrote about this mysterious fellow who not so long ago worked as an artisan. He used to lay down gas pipes going from the main into the houses of Felcsút. Today he is obviously a billionaire. And, by the by, he also received 1,200 hectares of land through the land lease program of the Orbán government. Some people think that the connection between Orbán and Mészáros is more than meets the eye. They suspect that Mészáros is a “stróman” (the Hungarian spelling of the German Strohmann, dummy, front man) in Viktor Orbán’s service.

And more news about the strange financial dealings touching on the Orbán family appeared only yesterday. In 2008 Mrs. Orbán (Anikó Lévai) purchased a 90m² apartment on Gellért Hill where Ráhel (24), the oldest Orbán daughter, lives. Krisztina Ferenczi, an investigative journalist who has been looking into the Orbán family’s enrichment for at least ten years, found out lately that the apartment right next door was purchased by István Garancsi, who just happens to be the owner of Viktor Orbán’s favorite  football team, Videoton. He is also the man who owns the only credit union that will not be nationalized, ostensibly because he is in the middle of converting it into a full-fledged bank. Most likely Orbán told Garancsi about the impending nationalization and advised him to begin converting his credit union into a bank to save his business. By the way, it was Garancsi’s credit union that lent a considerable amount of money to the Puskás Academy.

It turns out that Orbán’s only son, who plays for Videoton, has been living in Garancsi’s apartment ever since 2011. Apparently the young Orbán is neither a good football player nor a particularly enthusiastic one. He played only once last season. But Garancsi doesn’t seem to hold that against him. He is renting out his apartment to the young Orbán. The financial details are of course not a matter of public record.