Thoughts on the Hungarian Parliamentary election of 2014
Whilst I was at the Racism on the Rise: Challenging the Migration Debate in London, Hungary held a parliamentary election.
Not surprisingly, but unfortunately, Fidesz, led by the authoritarian and somewhat Putin-esque Viktor Orban, won the election easily, obtaining 133 seats out of 199 (96 single member mandates aka FPTP seats and 37 list seats), just enough to retain its supermajority required to amend the Hungarian constitution. However, not entirely every vote has been counted at this time of writing and winners have still not been finally declared in 2 single member mandates where every vote is being fought for, and if it goes the way of the Unity opposition, Fidesz will lose its supermajority-just.
Despite wisely forming into a coalition in order to maximise its potential in the election, the opposition Unity coalition of Hungary (comprising the Hungarian Socialist Party, the Dialogue for Hungary which split from LMP, the Hungarian Greens, the Democratic Coalition, and the Hungarian Liberal Party,once the Alliance of Free Democrats) failed miserably in recapturing the Hungarian assembly by only gaining 38 seats (10 FPTP seats and 28 list seats), notably because of the past scandals and failure of its prominent figures, including former Hungarian Prime Ministers Ference Gyurscany and Gordon Bajnai, a corruption scandal involving Hungarian Socialist Gabor Simon which happened during the campaign, and because of the nationalistic jingoism that Viktor Orban was able to use to capture the hearts of otherwise disillusioned Hungarian voters-in spite of what all he has done during the past 4 years.
Scarily, Jobbik, Hungary's neo-Nazi party, as bad as Greece's Golden Dawn, notorious for its often violent antiziganism, is also expected to increase its representation (in relative terms) in the Hungarian Assembly, in spite of making no secret of its extreme-right viewpoints. This phenomenon of racist antiziganist parties gaining strength has been notable in Eastern European nations over the past 20 years,particularly including nations like Romania and Serbia in addition to Hungary.
Thankfully, the Hungarian Green Party, LMP (Lehet Mas a Politika, which means Politics Can be Different) managed to retain its presence in the Hungarian Assembly, albeit with only 5 seats out of 199, compared to 16 out of 386 in 2010. Good work, Andras and Bernadett (Schiffer and Szel, respectively) for keeping the Green flag flying in Hungary when Mr. Orban tried his best to bring it down (along with as much as opposition to his regime as possible).
As for minor parties which failed to make the threshold, I am pleased to say that at least the left-wing (some say far left) Hungarian Workers' Party did well by minor party standards, with 10 of its (only 33 out of a possible 106) candidates for single member constituencies getting at least 1% of the vote in those districts, which minor parties found very difficult to achieve. They also received the highest number of list votes of parties who did not reach the 5% threshold. Given the vote squeeze that happened in the districts because of the significant differences between the four main Hungarian parties (Fidesz,Unity,Jobbik and LMP), some of them should be rather pleased-a few came pretty close to pushing the LMP candidate into fifth place in their district, surprisingly, including SMS list leader Maria Seres (she only finished 5th by 11 votes in her district).
Today, a parliamentary election in the Canadian province of Quebec will take place, and I will keeping an eye out in the hope Quebec Solidaire (a left-wing coalition) and the Quebecois Green Party will both perform well.
Alan.
Not surprisingly, but unfortunately, Fidesz, led by the authoritarian and somewhat Putin-esque Viktor Orban, won the election easily, obtaining 133 seats out of 199 (96 single member mandates aka FPTP seats and 37 list seats), just enough to retain its supermajority required to amend the Hungarian constitution. However, not entirely every vote has been counted at this time of writing and winners have still not been finally declared in 2 single member mandates where every vote is being fought for, and if it goes the way of the Unity opposition, Fidesz will lose its supermajority-just.
Despite wisely forming into a coalition in order to maximise its potential in the election, the opposition Unity coalition of Hungary (comprising the Hungarian Socialist Party, the Dialogue for Hungary which split from LMP, the Hungarian Greens, the Democratic Coalition, and the Hungarian Liberal Party,once the Alliance of Free Democrats) failed miserably in recapturing the Hungarian assembly by only gaining 38 seats (10 FPTP seats and 28 list seats), notably because of the past scandals and failure of its prominent figures, including former Hungarian Prime Ministers Ference Gyurscany and Gordon Bajnai, a corruption scandal involving Hungarian Socialist Gabor Simon which happened during the campaign, and because of the nationalistic jingoism that Viktor Orban was able to use to capture the hearts of otherwise disillusioned Hungarian voters-in spite of what all he has done during the past 4 years.
Scarily, Jobbik, Hungary's neo-Nazi party, as bad as Greece's Golden Dawn, notorious for its often violent antiziganism, is also expected to increase its representation (in relative terms) in the Hungarian Assembly, in spite of making no secret of its extreme-right viewpoints. This phenomenon of racist antiziganist parties gaining strength has been notable in Eastern European nations over the past 20 years,particularly including nations like Romania and Serbia in addition to Hungary.
Thankfully, the Hungarian Green Party, LMP (Lehet Mas a Politika, which means Politics Can be Different) managed to retain its presence in the Hungarian Assembly, albeit with only 5 seats out of 199, compared to 16 out of 386 in 2010. Good work, Andras and Bernadett (Schiffer and Szel, respectively) for keeping the Green flag flying in Hungary when Mr. Orban tried his best to bring it down (along with as much as opposition to his regime as possible).
As for minor parties which failed to make the threshold, I am pleased to say that at least the left-wing (some say far left) Hungarian Workers' Party did well by minor party standards, with 10 of its (only 33 out of a possible 106) candidates for single member constituencies getting at least 1% of the vote in those districts, which minor parties found very difficult to achieve. They also received the highest number of list votes of parties who did not reach the 5% threshold. Given the vote squeeze that happened in the districts because of the significant differences between the four main Hungarian parties (Fidesz,Unity,Jobbik and LMP), some of them should be rather pleased-a few came pretty close to pushing the LMP candidate into fifth place in their district, surprisingly, including SMS list leader Maria Seres (she only finished 5th by 11 votes in her district).
Today, a parliamentary election in the Canadian province of Quebec will take place, and I will keeping an eye out in the hope Quebec Solidaire (a left-wing coalition) and the Quebecois Green Party will both perform well.
Alan.
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