Break the system

Hungary voted for the right

In Hungary yesterday the results of the second round of parliamentary elections that took place last Sunday were announced. The vote consolidated the convincing superiority of the opposition center-right party “Union of Young Democrats - Hungarian Civil Union” (FIDES-HUC) achieved during the first round on April 11. It won 263 of the 386 seats in parliament, gaining a constitutional majority.

The Hungarian Socialist Party, which has ruled since 2002, gained only 59 seats, after which it admitted defeat. Its leader, Ildiko Lendvai, has already announced her resignation. For the first time, the far-right party “For a Better Hungary” entered parliament - it will have 47 seats. The new Green Party won 16 seats. One mandate went to an independent candidate.

The chairman of FIDES-VGS, 46-year-old Viktor Orban (pictured), who was the country's prime minister from 1988 to 2002, will again head the government. The winner said: “We managed to jump over our heads, and now it’s time to get rid of the wreckage of a collapsed era. The system cannot be changed, it can only be broken. We destroyed the system of oligarchs who abused power. Instead, a new system of national cooperation must be created.”

In an interview with Vremya Novostei, Lyubov Shishelina, head of the Department of Eastern European Studies at the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences, considered the triumph of right-wing parties to be natural: “The Socialists, having retained power in the 2006 elections with a dubious margin of 1%, were forced to admit that they had embellished data on the economic situation in the country. Even then, this caused them serious political damage. Now they have come to the elections with the highest inflation in the European Union of 5.4%, the largest external debt and unemployment exceeding 11%. Therefore, Viktor Orban’s victory was predictable, because he promised tax cuts and job creation.”

The Socialists explain their defeat by saying that they tried to act as a “bourgeois liberal party” and therefore lost the support of the left. “In Hungary, the concepts of “left” and “right” have become so distorted that the party nomenklatura and the oligarchic business elite have become “left”. And the “right” are the impoverished workers and middle class.” According to our interlocutor, this alignment of political forces, coupled with high-profile corruption scandals, led to “the revolution at the polling stations” that Orban announced.

What policy towards Russia will the new Hungarian government pursue? Lyubov Shishelina noted to VN that Viktor Orban actively used the slogan in the election campaign: “Turn your face to the East, and not focus only on the West.” He spoke about this when he was prime minister in the early 2000s. According to the expert, the new prime minister “will avoid insincere assurances of friendship and will prefer a pragmatic approach, which is especially valuable today for Russia’s relations with the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The Russian market is attractive for Hungary, and it will strive to enter it in order to revive its economy.”

Boris KAYMAKOV, Ivan SOLOVIEV