Two polls, two different results, and disappointing opposition politicians

In the last couple of days the results of two new public opinion polls on party preferences appeared: Ipsos on November 18 and Medián today. According to Ipsos, Fidesz-KDNP and LMP gained and the left lost, both by an inconsequential 1%. Medián’s survey, by contrast, found more substantial shifts, and in the opposite direction. Fidesz-KDNP lost 4% of its support in one month and Ferenc Gyurcsány’s party, DK, became as strong as E14-PM.

Let us examine these results a little more closely. According to Ipsos, Fidesz-KDNP’s support among the electorate as a whole is 27% while MSZP’s is 15%. As for the other parties, 7% of the eligible voters support Jobbik, 3% Együtt-PM, and only 2% LMP and DK.

As for voter commitment, according to Ipsos only 36% of the electorate is certain that they would cast a vote rain or shine. And that is very low. In this group Fidesz-KDNP leads by a mile: they would receive 51% percent of the votes against MSZP’s 26%. Jobbik voters are also deeply committed to their cause and therefore show good results in this category.

Somewhat larger changes occurred in the last month or so among the 42% of the voters who call themselves undecided. Within that group the size of “the completely passive voters” decreased by 3% while the number of those who have a preference but refuse to divulge what it is grew from 8% to 11%.

And let’s pause a bit to expand on these last figures. According to Tibor Závecz, the man in charge of the monthly Ipsos polls, the pool of “secretive voters” is large, about 900,000. Although these people might not want the pollsters to know their political views, the poll takers ask indirect questions that can be quite revealing. Based on answers to these indirect questions, Závecz claims that at  least two-thirds or even three-quarters of the secretive voters actually sympathize with the left.

Moving on to Medián, I’ll compare the still very sketchy outlines of this month’s results to Medián’s October figures. What we must keep in mind is that the October results reflect the situation before the October 23 mass meeting and the public demand there for unity among the forces on the left. The attendees wanted to broaden the arrangement Gordon Bajnai and Attila Mesterházy worked out to the exclusion of other parties and groupings. At that time Fidesz had a 36% share in the electorate as a whole and 52% among those who would definitely vote at the next elections as opposed to MSZP’s 14% and 21%. Együtt2014-PM still polled relatively well: 5% in the electorate as a whole and 7% among committed voters. DK at this point was weaker than E14-PM: 3% among all voters and 4% among committed voters.

red = the whole electorate;
black = those with a party preference;
orange = will definitely vote

And what is the situation today, after the mass demonstration?  Fidesz has a 34% share among all eligible voters and among the sure voters only 48%. That is a 2%/4% loss in one month. MSZP ticked up 2% in the electorate at large and remained unchanged among committed voters. E14-PM’s support eroded by 1%: last month’s 5% and 7% are 4% and 6% today. DK, on the other hand, as many people predicted, inched up and now matches Együtt2014-PM’s levels of support: 4% and 6%. If these numbers are more than a one-off, Gordon Bajnai who just the other day referred to those who were left out of the election agreement as small parties as opposed to his own might have to revise his estimate of the situation.

And this brings me to a couple of interviews György Bolgár conducted yesterday and today. Bolgár’s program lasts two hours and consists of a mixture of interviews and listener comments. Yesterday the whole first hour was devoted to a interview with Gordon Bajnai and Attila Mesterházy. Their performances were disappointing. My own feelings were exactly the same as those of Zsófia Mihancsik and Ferenc Krémer in today’s Galamus. Mihancsik’s article was entitled “This way there is no hope,” and Krémer called his “Sadness.” Shall I say more?

Attila Mesterházy took an unyielding position, standing by the arrangement that E14-PM and MSZP worked out. All other parties, including DK that is by now as strong as E14, should be satisfied with their sorry lot and support the two of them. I wonder what Mesterházy will do if in a couple of months it turns out that E14’s support has eroded further while DK has again gained.

I strongly suggest that those who can handle Hungarian listen not only to the interviews but also to the comments that followed. It is strange that these opposition politicians refuse to heed the voice of the electorate. They didn’t believe that the demonstration for unity was genuine and now surely they will say that all listeners of Klubrádió are DK supporters. How long can that fiction be maintained?

The MSZP argument for excluding DK is their conviction that Ferenc Gyurcsány’s presence on the ticket would take away more votes than it would bring in. However, a September survey, also by Medián, indicates that this is not the case. I wrote about this poll at length back in September. It is hard to figure out why Mesterházy clings to that, in my opinion, mistaken notion.

Today György Bolgár had a shorter interview with Klára Ungár, chairman of Szabad Emberek Magyarországért Liberális Párt or SZEMA, one of the three liberal groups. SZEMA’s support is immeasurably small.

I personally like Klára Ungár, but this interview highlighted the dysfunctions that pervaded SZDSZ (Szabad Demokraták Szövetsége). The party fell apart because of internal squabbling, political differences, and personal animosities. Things haven’t changed since. It was clear from Ungár’s interview that she would refuse any cooperation with the other liberals, that is with Gábor Kuncze’s group and Gábor Fodor’s new liberal party. Ungár, who hasn’t been active in politics since 1998, feels very virtuous and insists that other SZDSZ politicians should not only admit responsibility for Viktor Orbán’s rise to power but should simply disappear from political life.

So, this is the situation at the moment. A change of strategy is desperately needed as soon as possible. But after listening to Bajnai and Mesterházy I see no possibility of such a change in the near future. Meanwhile time is running out.

Massive police “inspection” in Budapest on Sunday

I almost missed the 24-hour-long police action in the nine districts of the left bank of the Danube, which means the entire Pest side of Budapest. Thousands of policemen worked diligently starting at “Sunday morning zero hour” to stop and search cars. These guardians of law and order had the authority to examine the clothing of the passengers and could search their cars looking for “instruments that may endanger public safety.” When reporters inquired why this heightened alert, the police refused to reveal the reason for what police jargon calls “increased inspection” (fokozott ellenőrzés).

It was twenty years ago that I first experienced similar Hungarian police tactics. I was riding with relatives when the car was pulled over for no good reason by two young policemen who wanted to see the driver’s license. I was somewhat shaken, but it turned out that this was common practice. Later an Internet friend reported that during a fairly short trip he was stopped three times. In any case, my relatives took the whole incident in stride.

These periodic checks of absolutely innocent drivers are annoying enough, but this latest full-scale “raid,” as Magyar Nemzet called it, is most likely unconstitutional. At least this is what the Hungarian Helsinki Committee thinks. On July 19 the organization, after a similar raid of a private club maintained by a Jewish youth organization, turned to Máté Szabó, the ombudsman, to inquire about the constitutionality of such police raids.

About a month ago the police stepped up its inspection of motorcyclists and bicyclists in Budapest, allegedly “because during the summer there are accidents every day that involve motorcycles and bicycles.” Twenty-five percent of those inspected were found guilty of breaking various rules and regulations. These inspections are ordered because the leaders of the Hungarian police force claim that  they serve the purpose of “reducing the number of crimes, preventing illegal activities and forestalling traffic accidents.” The fines, of course, also bring in much needed revenue.

When the Budapest police chief was asked the reason for this latest mega-inspection, he refused to divulge its purpose. According to Ferenc Krémer, an expert on police matters, not divulging the reason for police actions was “the customary practice of the Kádár regime.” In fact, a policeman who approaches a vehicle during these inspections must inform the passengers of the car of the purpose of his mission and ask for their cooperation. Naturally, in this case no such practice was followed because there was no declared reason for the search.

Now comes the question of what is considered to be a bodily search (motozás in Hungarian). It seems that according to the official police definition such a search includes bodily cavities, and it can be performed only in the presence of a doctor. However, the “search of clothing,” which is currently allowed, is also an intrusion because after all it entails what we call “frisking” in English–that is, searching  for something concealed, especially a weapon, by passing the hands quickly over clothes or through pockets. Well, to my mind this is also “motozás.” Searching the car is also questionable according to the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, especially since the European Court of Justice already made a ruling forbidding it in a case involving the U.K. police force.

“Increased inspection”
MTI / Photo Sándor H. Szabó

The argument that these periodic searches of people and cars are instrumental in crime prevention has no foundation. While the number of police actions has been steadily growing since September 2012 when the new national police chief took over, so has the number of crimes.

As I said, I almost missed this news, mostly because the Hungarian media didn’t pay much attention to it. A well known Hungarian journalist e-mailed me this morning complaining about the scant coverage. Given the secrecy and the large scale of the “increased inspection,” he suspects that the real aim of this and similar raids is intimidation. I wouldn’t be surprised if he were right.

Fidesz leaders have certainly used intimidation before. And here’s one small example from today. In a Miskolc hospital eight premature babies died over a short period of time. Viktor Orbán himself stepped in. He suspended the director of the hospital and personally ordered the police to investigate and darkly mentioned the possible role of the National Security Office in the case. I’ll bet that everybody in that hospital is shaking in their boots at the moment. It’s not every day that a prime minister suspends hospital personnel and orders a police investigation of an individual hospital’s practices.

The dark message? The police, the government’s enforcement agency, should be feared and the population should understand that “raids” can come at any time, with no probable cause required and no justification necessary. This kind of intimidation belongs in a police state, not in a democracy.

Fidesz’s success and the public’s ignorance of democratic principles

I guess the real test of a good opinion piece is whether the reader finds it thought provoking. Whether while reading the piece dozens of  examples, questions, and ideas come to mind. I must say that I don’t have this experience very often, but this morning I did thanks to an article by Árpád W. Tóta entitled “A fideszes áfium ellen való orvosság.” My mind immediately started racing (some might say wandering), but as it turned out I wasn’t too far from the main thrust of Tóta’s argument.

First I stopped at the word “áfium” in the title.  My high school years came back to me. All those who finished Hungarian high school learned something about Miklós Zrinyi (1620-1664), ban (governor) of Croatia, general, poet, politician, writer of political treatises. He wrote a political pamphlet entitled “A török áfium ellen való orvosság” and, although I don’t remember ever reading a single line from this work in school, we did learn the pamphlet’s title. But there was one rather serious problem. We had no idea what the word “áfium,” an archaic word, meant and our Hungarian teacher never bothered to enlighten us. It was only years later that I found out that “áfium” meant “opium” and that the title actually meant “Medicine against the Turkish opium.”

From “áfium” I made a mental leap to the deficiencies of Hungarian education and found myself on the same wave length as Tóta, who complained in the body of his article about the ignorance that allows a million and half Hungarians to be unquestioning followers of a false messiah. Tóta believes that “the medicine against the Fidesz opium” lies in enlightenment, in education, in learning about democracy, learning about the world.

Tóta is right when he claims that those who find Fidesz’s message and practices repugnant often think that Viktor Orbán’s slavish followers are simply stupid. No, he says, they are just ignorant–and they lack intellectual curiosity. I would change the order of deficiencies here. Without intellectual curiosity a person will never acquire the information necessary to make intelligent choices. And intellectual curiosity is in short supply in Hungary. For instance, the number of Hungarian adults taking continuing education courses is the lowest in all of Europe.

Source: 02varvara.wordpress

Tóta blames the eight years of socialist-liberal governance for allowing a generation to grow up without ever acquiring the rudiments of democratic thinking. As a result 17% of Hungarian college students believe the drivel of Jobbik. Tóta suggests that once Fidesz is gone it will be time to transform the newly adopted compulsory hour of morality and religion to “civics.” As he jokingly says, “the framework is given; one just has to change the textbooks.”

Once I got this far I recalled Ferenc Krémer’s latest article on Galamus about “Teaching democracy, the German example.” Krémer naturally mentioned the German children’s show which teaches the pillars of democracy, like an independent judiciary, freedom of the media, and freedom of assembly. It was on this show that German children learned about all those undemocratic practices the Orbán government introduced. Naturally Orbán was outraged and called the show “brainwashing,” something he would never allow to appear on Hungarian public television.

My guess is that a lot of liberal and socialist opponents of the Orbán government would agree with Tóta and Krémer that democratic thinking must be taught, preferably at a young age. But many of the same people find the European Union’s efforts at curbing smoking unacceptable. It is brainwashing, they say.

So, let’s see what brainwashing means. It has two meanings: (1) intensive, forcible indoctrination, usually political or religious, aimed at destroying a person’s basic convictions and attitudes and replacing them with an alternative set of fixed beliefs, and (2) the application of a concentrated means of persuasion, such as an advertising campaign or repeated suggestion, in order to develop a specific belief or motivation.

Surely, neither the German children’s show teaching young kids about democratic thinking nor the campaign against smoking would fall into the first category. There is no question of forcible indoctrination here. Instead, both use persuasion in order to develop a specific belief or motivation. In the first instance to develop a belief in democracy and in the second to reinforce one’s motivation to quit smoking. Both are for the common good, I think. Yet a lot of confusion as well as genuinely conflicting opinions surround the question of influencing public opinion. The Nazis in Germany didn’t have to force people to follow the Führer. A concentrated means of persuasion was enough. Or we condemn the tobacco companies’ advertising practices that encouraged smoking but laud the efforts of governments to curb smoking, although both fall into the category of persuasion by social means.

The subject of brainwashing and persuasion has a large literature, but I like one simple description of brainwashing: “someone else is thinking for you.” This is unfortunately very much the case with nonthinking Fidesz followers. Whatever future Hungarian governments do to ensure a better educated public, they must put the emphasis on independent thinking and a broader knowledge of the world. It also might not be a bad idea to teach children the meaning of “áfium” and, while they are at it, tell them what Zrínyi’s work is all about.

How to rebuild democracy in Hungary? According to some, not by compromise with Fidesz

As I mentioned yesterday, there were two topics suggested by readers and I agreed that they were interesting and definitely worth spending time on. After tackling two surveys on Hungarian societal attitudes we can now turn to the question of “What will happen, what should happen after Orbán?” posed by Zsófia Mihancsik, whose writings have appeared more than once on this blog. Her latest contribution is  a series of questions she thinks the democratic opposition should discuss even before the election campaign. At the moment the various opposition parties and groupings agree on one thing:  Orbán’s regime must be removed. However, some very important decisions must be made and agreed upon. It is for this reason that she as editor-in-chief of Galamus initiated a series of articles that might assist those whose job it will be to work out a common platform necessary for setting up a successful and lasting coalition.

The first question is: “Do we have to reach a compromise with Fidesz after the party’s loss of the 2014 elections?” In practical terms that means that the democrats must forget about all “the political and moral crimes that had been committed by Fidesz  in opposition and in power.” One can make a case for such compromise by pointing out that, after all, the voters of Fidesz represent a certain portion of the electorate.

If the decision is to seek a compromise, one must determine whether this compromise should be with the party itself, with its voters, or both. Moreover, how much should the democratic forces be willing to pay for such a compromise? And one ought to ponder whether such a compromise would actually achieve the desired result of political and social tranquility.

But if it becomes obvious that no compromise is possible either with Fidesz or its voters, then how should the new political leadership handle the coming conflicts? Can they in a democratic regime ignore a party that received the votes of many and is represented in parliament?

What should they do with “the products of Fidesz’s rule–the new constitution and all those new laws?”  These laws were enacted in order to build a centralized, state-dominated regime serving only the needs of an autocracy. Would it be enough to whittle away at them or, like Orbán, should they start everything anew and develop an entirely new regime? “In other words, can one build democracy on a set of laws that were designed to build autocracy?”

What should be done with party cadres who masquerade as experts? Should they be replaced? And there is the question of those who were appointed for nine or eleven years. What should be done with those people who, thanks to Fidesz, received land or tobacconist shops? What about the nationalized schools? Does one have to face the fact that these mostly illegal changes cannot be undone and that one must live with them? And if yes, what are the consequences?

More or less these were the questions that Mihancsik posed in her article.

The first answer to some of these questions came from Ferenc Krémer. You may recall that he was one of the early victims of the Orbán regime when he lost his job as professor of sociology at the Police Academy. He was far too liberal for that place. I will summarize the article in greater detail, but his message is crystal clear: there is no way of making a compromise on any level because one cannot build  democracy on undemocratic foundations.

Building blocks – flickr

Can one build democracy by undemocratic means or does one need consensus? Krémer’s answer is that neither road will necessarily achieve the desired end. After all, the 1989-90 regime change was based on consensus and yet it didn’t produce a lasting democratic regime. At that time consensus was easier to reach because all segments of Hungarian society desired the the same thing, the establishment of a democratic regime. But today the situation is different because, although “all democratic opposition forces assume that there is need in this country for democracy, the fact is that almost as large a segment of society gladly settle for a dictatorship.” Thus the reintroduction of democracy in Hungary at the moment, unlike almost fifteen years ago, does not have a solid societal foundation.

If the preconditions of a general desire for democratic change are missing, can one substitute for them concessions to those whose ideal is not exactly democracy? In Krémer’s opinion one can’t. In the past, no concessions to a Viktor Orbán-led Fidesz ever followed by any tangible result of cooperation. Moreover, the election will be decided by the now still undecided voters. In Krémer’s opinion “it is a grave political mistake to consider the undecided voters as disillusioned Fidesz followers and to talk to them as if they had anything to do with what happened in the Fidesz era. … It is very probable that one cannot offer anything to the Orbán voters that would change their minds and therefore one shouldn’t even experiment with such an approach because it only confuses the anti-Orbán voters.”

The democratic opposition first and foremost must decide whether Orbán’s regime is a democracy or not because “autocracy will remain with us as long as its institutions and its culture exist and function.” If the answer is that, yes, it is a democracy, then both the institutions and the people populating them can remain in place. In this case, in Krémer’s opinion, there will not be democracy in Hungary even after the fall of the Orbán regime.

Krémer then outlines a series of possible compromises that could be offered to Fidesz. What Fidesz institutions should be left intact? The Media Council?  The current system of public works? The “orbanization” of state lands? The national tobacconist shops? The nationalized and centralized school system? The militarized police? The Anti-Terrorist Center (TEK)? Forcing experts into retirement? Which ones?

What about some of the newly enacted laws? “Vote for which one you would like.”  The new labor law? The Basic Law, especially with its fourth amendment? The law dealing with the police? The law that dispensed with local autonomy? The law on churches that discriminates against some religious communities? Or what about the law in the making that would sanction school segregation?

What can they offer to the “servants of dictators”? Should they follow the policy of Imre Kerényi and György Fekete, commissars of national culture, or the views of the historians of MTA who decided that no György Lukács or Vladimir Mayakovsky can have streets named after them? Should one say that there is agreement regarding Fidesz’s concept of family or that one can believe in God in only three ways? “Yes, we could say it but then we wouldn’t be who we are.”

In brief, Krémer is unequivocably against any compromise. Naturally one could argue with his views, but his reasoning, in my opinion, is sound.

“Should Europe intervene in our affairs?”

I would like to return to the draft report of the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) on Hungary. It is a 30-page document that shows a thorough understanding of every aspect of Hungarian politics, relating specifically to constitutional issues. Rui Tavares, who was one of the rapporteurs in charge of the document, seems to be fully conversant with the issues under discussion. It is a very thorough document and recommends tough sanctions. The sanctions mentioned in the document are not monetary. It suggests setting up a strict monitoring regime and calls on sanctions based on Article 7 that would take away Hungary’s voting rights.  Therefore, I found it incomprehensible why MSZP immediately announced that its EU parliamentary members would not sign the document in this form. I understand that people in Brussels who have been working very hard at uncovering illegal legislative actions by the Orbán government were stunned. If the Hungarian socialists don’t support the LIBE report, it is hard to imagine that the members of the committee will.

The MSZP leadership happened to be in Brussels when the Tavares report was released. Attila Mesterházy told one of the reporters of Népszabadság that “the socialists are committed adherents of the European Union and European integration. However, we don’t support any measures that would be accompanied by a possible withholding of financial resources that would harm the Hungarian people.” At a press conference Mesterházy announced that the party leadership instructed the MSZP EP members not to vote for the report in its present form.

Why it was necessary to make this declaration is hard to fathom. In the first place, as I said, no financial sanction is mentioned in the Tavares document. Moreover, if I understand it correctly, this announcement was made in response to a question from one of the reporters present. I’m no politician but, if I had been Mesterházy, I would have avoided this trap. He could have said that he hadn’t had an opportunity to study the document or that the steering committee hadn’t had a chance to formulate the party’s official policy on the subject. This is a delicate question that needs thorough analysis, and the less one says about it the better.

The Hungarian opposition has been struggling with this issue for some time. On April 1 Gordon Bajnai gave an interview to Der Standard, an Austrian newspaper, where the reporter asked him the following question: “The European Commission has threatened Hungary with sanctions because of the idiosyncratic course its government follows. For example, with withdrawal of funds. Would you support such a move?” To which Bajnai answered: “No. One should not punish the people because they have a bad government. Hungary needs EU money to develop, and the country is … still a democracy.” He subsequently visited Brussels and approached EU officials with a request to spare the Hungarian people from financial hardship just because of the policies of the Orbán government.

Mesterházy did the same during one of his earlier visits to Brussels. Yes, the government is trampling on Hungarian democracy, but let’s keep financing the government that without support most likely would collapse. Let’s get billions and billions of euros that the Orbán government can pass on to its supporters and friends. Both Együtt 2014 and MSZP seem to be in a hopeless quandary because they are afraid that public opinion will turn against them if they support EU efforts to defend Hungarian democracy.

Ferenc Krémer wrote a couple of articles in Galamus in connection with the opposition’s dilemma, which in his opinion is no dilemma at all. In the first one he called MSZP “the fifth column” of Fidesz and continued: “We, all of us, even those who didn’t vote for Fidesz in 2010 must take responsibility for the current state of the country. Not one of us can avoid responsibility, especially not MSZP, for Viktor Orbán’s ability to begin ‘the country’s renewal,’ meaning the establishment of a dictatorship. We have no moral basis for demanding from the European Union not to defend its most basic values; we have no right to demand its financing the power of the Orbán clan, the enrichment of the Simicska clan and Hungary’s moral depravity.”

http://radiomuqdisho.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Democracy.jpg

Soon enough came a correction by “nyüzsi” in HVG. (Nyüzsgés means swarming in Hungarian.) Krémer is wrong. MSZP is not a “fifth column” but a bunch of “useful idiots.” This is a term reserved for people perceived as propagandists for a cause whose goals they do not understand and who are used cynically by the leaders of the cause. “The leaders of the liberal-socialist opposition make asses of themselves right in front of our eyes and undermine their own credibility as critics of Fidesz. They fell into the trap of Viktor Orbán who claims that ‘criticism of Orbán = criticism of Hungary.’ They don’t want the average Joe to suffer, but the average Joe and everybody else is suffering because of the constitutional and economic running amuck of the Orbán government and not because of the dictum of the aristocrats in Brussels.”

Ferenc Krémer today continued his analysis of the situation that developed after the publication of the Tavares report. MSZP leaders deep down most likely realize the impasse they find themselves in, and therefore Zita Gurmai, MSZP MEP, in a radio interview on Thursday did her best not to answer the questions of János Dési who was substituting for György Bolgár that day. The MSZP politicians “are unable to bridge the precipice they perceive between the defense of democracy and the defense of their country.  They should realize that there is no precipice between the two. All decisions must be based on that recognition. Therefore all steps the EU takes against the government of Viktor Orbán must be welcome. The responsibility lies with those who are guilty: Viktor Orbán, his government, and the whole of Fidesz.”

The only opposition party that has a clearly formulated policy on possible EU sanctions is the Demokratikus Koalíció. Tamás Bauer wrote on that subject with the title: “Article seven and the Hungarian democrats.” DK is convinced that there is no gap between democracy and the defense of the country. On the contrary, the EU is defending Hungarian democracy and all Hungarian democrats must support Brussels in this effort.

And finally here is a document signed by the leading members of the Democratic Opposition of the late 1980s.

Us and them

Should Europe intervene in our affairs?

Memorandum of the former Anti-communist Opposition 

The nation is the community into which we were born, whereas the European Union is the community which we chose for a democratic Hungary. Both are important and even indispensable for us. In the past decades we have struggled to have our innate community (the nation) and our chosen community (the Union) be imbued with the same set of values. We owe responsibility for both of them.

It is not by mere chance that when as opponents of the communist regime we were not yet a member state of the European community in a political sense and just hoped to join it one day, we claimed as a matter of course that the communist regime be confronted with the values of liberal democracy, so blatantly ignored or breached by that regime.

Nothing has changed since.

We reject the populist view that strives to divide and alienate along the “them” and “us” dimension. The anti-European, xenophobic populism of Fidesz is the ideology of an autocratic regime that under a national disguise labels any kind of external demand for maintaining democratic norms as an attempt of colonization.

At the same time, by publicly announcing that the Hungarian socialist members of the European Parliament refuse in its present form the Tavares report dated on 8th of May, which strongly criticizes the situation concerning the rule of law in Hungary, not only runs in the face of the commonly approved set of European values, but also serves to satisfy, instead of rejecting, a populist demand.

Just as we condemn “dirty solidarity” that turns a blind eye to the violation of democratic values under the pretext of party solidarity, we do not wish to be part of “hypocritical solidarity” either, which implies solidarity with an autocratic government. If the present Hungarian democratic opposition is determined to defeat Fidesz in this populist arena and challenge the ruling party that governs in collusion with Jobbik, then it is doomed to defeat itself as well as its own country.

9^th of May 2013, Budapest

Attila Ara-Kovács, former diplomat

Gábor Demszky, former Mayor of Budapest

Miklós Haraszti, former OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media

Róza Hodosán, former MP

Gábor Iványi, pastor

János Kenedi, historian

György Konrád, author

Bálint Magyar, former Minister of Education

Imre Mécs, former MP

Sándor Radnóti, philosopher

László Rajk, architect

Sándor Szilágyi, art writer