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.

István Hegedűs: “Mafia state and the party”

One of the readers of Hungarian Spectrum suggested that we should discuss István Hegedűs’s article in Élet  és Irodalom which also deals with the Bálint Magyar thesis of the post-communist mafia state. First a few words about István Hegedűs. As opposed to Bálint Magyar and Gábor Horn, Hegedűs was one of the leading members of Fidesz prior to 1993, when he and others became disillusioned with the direction in which Viktor Orbán and László Kövér were leading the party. Some of the more important “dissidents” besides Hegedűs were Gábor Fodor, Klára Ungár, Péter Molnár, and Zsuzsanna Szelényi. At that time only Gábor Fodor continued a political career (in SZDSZ) while the others abandoned politics altogether. In the last few weeks, however, Zsuzsanna Szelényi has reappeared in Együtt 2014-PM as a spokesperson on matters of education. Hegedűs is a sociologist with a long list of publications, some of which are available in English. He is especially interested in the media, political parties, and the European Union. He teaches at École Supérieure des Sciences Commerciales d’Angers (ESSCA)’s English-language division in Budapest. In 2001 these five dissidents wrote a fairly lengthy book about the early years of Fidesz. I started rereading it this afternoon and came to the conclusion that it is perhaps even more valuable today than it was twelve years ago. After all, since then we have found out a great deal about the Fidesz leadership and the mechanics of the party’s inner workings. So, what does Hegedűs think of Bálint Magyar’s thesis? As opposed to Gábor Horn, he considers Magyar’s “conception a systematically elucidated, comprehensive and convincing construction.” However, Hegedűs points out that there are many other observable characteristics that cannot be explained solely by the mafia-state mentality. The mafia-state might be a perfect description in the economic sphere but not necessarily in the political realm. Age-old concepts like one-man leadership, a system of political clientele, interpenetration of party and state, plunder, populism, nationalism, and authoritarian worldview are all still present in Orbán’s system. One can also contemplate to what extent Orbán’s Hungary is really the result of  the “dear leader’s” personality. Hegedűs, as opposed to Magyar, concentrates more on ideology and politics as opposed to societal organization by mafia-like methods and finds the Fidesz regime’s political philosophy “barren.” Hegedűs points out that “behind the two-thirds majority there is no new vision despite the transcendent phraseology of the constitution.” The rhetoric of anti-communism, anti-liberalism, growing anti-European sentiments, nationalism, and the opponent-enemy linkage is nothing new in Fidesz political discourse. Unfortunately, this rhetoric kindles only a negative identity, although Hegedűs admits that turning to ultra-conservative ideas might promote cohesion within the group. Fidesz’s emphasis on strengthening the middle classes is not new either. MDF also based its politics on the idea. Yet Hegedűs is convinced that in addition to the “inner motivation of missionary zeal” one must take into account the role of ideology, “This inner driving force cannot be seen from the outside … because individual political groupings live in their own alternative reality and they judge or condemn the aspirations of their opponents exclusively on moral grounds.”

Source: oneline.wsj.com

Hegedűs was once part of the Fidesz party elite. He assumes that at the very top there are still most likely mechanisms that allow members of the inner circle to disagree and to think independently, but only within the framework of certain axioms that cannot be questioned. It is most likely very difficult to find one’s way in the jungle of intrigue, infighting, favoritism, compromise, and alliances that any leader faces. That is why “a pragmatic, completely mafia-like regime … is not as clear-cut inside a party or a political organization” as in businesses dealing of the party. What further complicates any assessment of the workings of the party leadership is the arrival of newcomers who are not party members and whose only connection to Fidesz is Viktor Orbán. Infiltration from the outside began already in the early 1990s but became massive with the arrival of members of the political cells (polgári körök) created by Viktor Orbán after the 2002 lost elections. Yet Hegedűs claims that the workings of the Fidesz top leadership most likely haven’t changed fundamentally since the early 1990s, which eventually led to the split between followers of Viktor Orbán and Gábor Fodor. Even my superficial reading of bits and pieces of the participants’ remembrances of that split in 1993 reinforces the notion that Viktor Orbán, László Kövér and Zsolt Németh didn’t change as much in the intervening years as outsiders think. I tend to agree with István Hegedűs, who says that “as far as the methods of inner power relations are concerned, we don’t know of any such changes that would distinguish the present time from the situation of 1993-1994 when Orbán and his close associates turned to the right.”

How women are being treated in the Hungarian parliament

In September of 2012 there was an uproar in the Hungarian parliament over the issue of domestic violence; I spent at least two posts on the issue. By popular demand, the House had to consider including domestic violence in the criminal code. It was clear from the beginning that the Fidesz-KDMP caucus was planning to vote against the measure. One member of the government party after the other got up, delivering ringing speeches about “the place of the woman” in their world: they should produce lots of children, perhaps five or six. Once they did their patriotic duty they could look around and fulfill their career plans.

I first wrote about the subject on September 12, but a week later I returned to the question because Fidesz politicians launched an attack on “bluestockings”–to use the Reverend Zoltán Balog’s term–because they dared to call domestic violence “family violence.” Never mind that the dictionary meaning of domestic violence is “violence toward or physical abuse of one’s spouse or domestic partner.” This insistence on avoiding the word “family” highlights Fidesz-KDNP’s attempt to elevate the notion of family to something close to sacred. The word “family” cannot be associated with anything negative, like violence.

Yet the very same people who are so worried about the sanctity of the family and the role of women in it treat their female colleagues like dirt. According to the liberal Klára Ungár (SZEMA / Szabad Emberek Magyarországért), the women in parliament have been maltreated by their male colleagues ever since the dawn of the new democratic era in Hungary. In those days, she claims, the young male politicians of the Free Democrats were a great more enlightened than the older crew of the right-of-center coalition who often made boorish jokes at the expense of their female colleagues. Another former Fidesz female politician, Zsuzsanna Szelényi, on the other hand, described this college crowd as macho from day one. Yes, there were some female members of the group, mostly girlfriends or later wives, but it was a predominantly male gathering where the presence of women was not always welcome.

Since then not much has changed in the Hungarian parliament. If a woman rises to speak, especially if that woman is from the opposition, obscene, demeaning shouts ring out from the Fidesz-KDNP-Jobbik section of the House. On such occasions the right side of the aisle closes ranks. Not even the women of Fidesz-KDNP raise their voices in protest. They don’t have the slightest sense of solidarity with members of their own sex.

Ágnes Osztolykán

The latest scandal involved Ágnes Osztolykán, an LMP member of parliament and a woman of Roma origin. A couple of days ago she published a post on her blog entitled “Darkness in the Honored House.” Late at night on the first day of the new parliamentary session she discovered that she had no money to take a taxi home. She found a group of colleagues chit-chatting in the corridor and asked whether “one of them could take her home.” She almost apologetically adds, “after the fact, by now I know that this was a wrong question.” Almost automatically her first thought was self-accusation. She asked the wrong question. So, she blames herself for the treatment she received because, after all, one can expect only an obscene answer to this kind of request. This is how things are in Hungary.

You can imagine what followed. Some MPs suggested that they would take her home, but to their own apartments. Osztolykán adds: “I was hoping they would stop, but in fact they got more and more into the swing of things” until a Jobbik member of parliament, one of the most primitive characters of the bunch, György Gyula Zagyva, about whom I wrote a post already, got involved. Zagyva told her that he wouldn’t mind f…ing her even though she was a Gypsy.

The comments that followed this revelation were, in my opinion, on the wrong track. Everybody concentrated on the fact that these people are members of parliament and should set a good example. No wonder, they added, that people use such filthy language everywhere.

But this is not the point. First of all, members of parliament are part and parcel of society as a whole. Perhaps the composition of this particular parliament is lopsided in the sense that the men and women who sit in the parliamentary delegations of Fidesz and the Christian Democrats are Viktor Orbán’s personal choices. You may recall that the candidates had to be personally approved by the “pocket dictator,” as someone called Orbán not so long ago. And Jobbik’s presence in the House only adds to the crowd that considers women not quite equal to men. Don’t forget that it was young Jobbik activists who listed incoming freshmen and made all sorts of obscene notations when it came to female members of the class.

I also blame Hungarian women for this state of affairs, and I do hope that a few more incidents like this will wake them up. In a country where people equate feminism with lesbianism and where women seem unaware of their inferior status in society they are easy targets. If women don’t stand up and say that enough is enough, nothing will change either inside or outside of parliament.

The solution to all this is not the white rose delivered by the Fidesz MP after he had insulted a female member of parliament but a radical change in the status of women in Hungarian society. As for the white rose, in the MP’s place I wouldn’t have accepted it.