Hungarian Politics

[Valmy]

So apparently because the Finnish government (currently holding EU presidency) is taking a stand on defending democracy in the EU and condemning worrying developments in Hungary and Poland, Hungarian media is spewing hostile propaganda about Finland.

What exactly do they have on Finland?

[Solmyr]

They claim we don't have an "independent constitutional legal system" and there's no freedom of press because most major media is liberal (which is not really true).

Articles in question:
https://www.origo.hu/nagyvilag/20190715-finnorszagban-sulyos-veszelyben-van-a-mediapluralizmus.html
https://www.origo.hu/nagyvilag/20190715-finnorszagban-nincsen-fuggetlen-alkotmanyos-jogrendszer.html

[Syt]

no freedom of press because most major media is liberal

Unless there's state pressure against media with other leanings, then I don't see how that follows. Besides wouldn't that mean that Hungary doesn't have free press because most major media are conservative?

[celedhring]

Maybe long and dark winters are a Soros conspiracy?

[Tamas]

Ah, Origo.hu

It used to be the biggest Hungarian news site. Used to be owned by Deutsche Telekom's Hungarian subsidiary, but -probably in exchange of lifting punitive taxes- they sold it to a Fidesz oligarch, and it has become a very vile site.

My favourite part is when these different government media reference each other as reliable source. Like Orgio would feature a ridiculous story like this, and the state TV would feature it.

One of Orban's men recently opened a news agency in London, so now they get to feature news from "according to a foreign news agency"

[Solmyr]

no freedom of press because most major media is liberal

Unless there's state pressure against media with other leanings, then I don't see how that follows. Besides wouldn't that mean that Hungary doesn't have free press because most major media are conservative?

You don't see how that follows, but the Hungarian state media certainly does.

[Tamas]

I genuinely wonder when parts of the Hungarian state will just simply cease to function.

During the multiple heatwaves there in the last couple of months, several hospitals had operating rooms with 35-36 degress of Celcius temperature. In the children's ward in a major city, for a while they only did life-saving operations, using iced clothes to keep the patients cool and wiping the sweat from the doctors so they could actually see while operating. And this was just one hospital out of at least three I have read about.

The official reaction to all this was straight out of the Chernobyl series. First, they denied anything like this ever happened. Then they threatened those who leaked the info. Then they acknowledged various malfunctions with the AC equipment.


Meanwhile, the year previous has seen the most resignations from the police force, ever.

They have also just reduced the requirements for head teacher/director positions at elementary and high schools, because nobody wants to take them. This one, in particular, is blamed by many on the extreme centralisation of the state education system. Pretty much all autonomy of school directors have been taken away, and they now serve as the main administrators. Having all the responsibility and work and none of the control for slightly higher wages than a regular teacher is understandably not an attractive proposition.

The National Science Academy has effectively been annexed by the government, all future grants will be handed out by a government politician, and not by the body of scientists leading the Academy.

I think I've mentioned that the National Library is being exiled from their beautiful and (and lucratively placed) 19th century building to some unused military barracks.

Latest news is that the EU will -finally- start some proceedings over Hungary literally starving asylum seekers in their border-zone camps. That's one disgrace that has been going on for years. Basically, people are told that they should go back to Serbia if they want to eat. It took a lot of effort by NGO workers to, for example, get the authorities to feed a pregnant woman.

It's just an effin' disgrace all around.

[mongers]

I genuinely wonder when parts of the Hungarian state will just simply cease to function.

During the multiple heatwaves there in the last couple of months, several hospitals had operating rooms with 35-36 degress of Celcius temperature. In the children's ward in a major city, for a while they only did life-saving operations, using iced clothes to keep the patients cool and wiping the sweat from the doctors so they could actually see while operating. And this was just one hospital out of at least three I have read about.

The official reaction to all this was straight out of the Chernobyl series. First, they denied anything like this ever happened. Then they threatened those who leaked the info. Then they acknowledged various malfunctions with the AC equipment.


Meanwhile, the year previous has seen the most resignations from the police force, ever.

They have also just reduced the requirements for head teacher/director positions at elementary and high schools, because nobody wants to take them. This one, in particular, is blamed by many on the extreme centralisation of the state education system. Pretty much all autonomy of school directors have been taken away, and they now serve as the main administrators. Having all the responsibility and work and none of the control for slightly higher wages than a regular teacher is understandably not an attractive proposition.

The National Science Academy has effectively been annexed by the government, all future grants will be handed out by a government politician, and not by the body of scientists leading the Academy.

I think I've mentioned that the National Library is being exiled from their beautiful and (and lucratively placed) 19th century building to some unused military barracks.

Latest news is that the EU will -finally- start some proceedings over Hungary literally starving asylum seekers in their border-zone camps. That's one disgrace that has been going on for years. Basically, people are told that they should go back to Serbia if they want to eat. It took a lot of effort by NGO workers to, for example, get the authorities to feed a pregnant woman.

It's just an effin' disgrace all around.

This will be the UK in 5-10 years time with Johnson in charge.

[Duque de Bragança]

Never thought Mongers could say BoJo would have such a long "reign". 

[PJL]

I'm sure it was a typo. For years read months.

[mongers]

Never though Mongers could say BoJo would have such a long "reign". 

No I actually meant it, I fear with him playing full on populism, he'll be able to find scapegoats for a fair few years. 

Or if Brexit is his undoing, then the hard right Tories that succeed him, like JRM will be able to lay the blame at his door and rule in his stead.

[Tamas]

There has been this "Civil Service University" the government formed some years ago to train police and army officers, civil servants, and the like.

This is apparently from the freshmen oath-taking ceremony:

[HVC]

What's with the magical stick?

[Tamas]

This Sunday there'll be local elections country-wide.

So Fidesz wanted to make sure people know what they are TRULY about:




"Hungary will not be an immigrant country!

This Sunday, make a stand for Hungary!"





Also there has been a major scandal involving the long-standing Fidesz mayor of a major western city, Gyor. Some ex-affiliate (anonymus) has started revealing details about him, most notably a fun weekend he had on a yacht on the Adriatic last year, with some of his crook friends and a number of cheap whores.

It's the kind of reveal that he had to upload to Pornhub.  So the country has been watching the naked mayor going at it in a yacht orgy, in a home video.

But he hasn't resigned, and will still run this Sunday.

Weirdest of all was his opponent, the joint candidate of the opposition, some lady. She released a video, which really came very short of seeking excuses for the mayor.  She said that the mayor has "betrayed everything he used to stand for" and although "she is not as experienced in running a city" as the mayor is "she would never embarass it this way".

As if she got terified of the prospect she might actually win. Shows you the sorry state of politics in the country. This mayor allegedly has been more like a feudal lord so I guess I understand if the prospect of having to fight and dismantle his web of corrupt alliances feels daunting, but come on now.

[The Larch]

It seems that not everything is lost in Hungary after all.

Blow for Hungary PM Orbán as opposition wins Budapest mayoral race

Gergely Karácsony's victory is one of many defeats across Hungary for Viktor Orbán's Fidesz party


Hungary's nationalist prime minister Viktor Orbán has suffered his first electoral blow since coming to power in 2010, with an opposition candidate scoring a shock win in the Budapest mayoral race.

The victory was "historic", said the pro-European centre-left challenger Gergely Karácsony, 44, who was backed by a wide range of opposition parties from across the political spectrum.

The mild-mannered former political scientist led by 51% of the vote ahead of the incumbent Istvan Tarlos on around 44%, with 82% of votes counted.

In office since 2010, the 71-year-old Tarlos, who is backed by Orbán's right-wing Fidesz party, congratulated the new mayor by phone, Karácsony told cheering supporters.

"We will take the city from the 20th century to the 21st," said the pro-EU Karacsony, who was one of the few opposition politicians to win a district in the previous election five years ago. "Budapest will be green and free, we will bring it back to Europe."

Karácsony had compared the Budapest race to the Istanbul mayoral election in March, in which the candidate of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's party was defeated by the opposition challenger.

"Istanbul voted against an aggressive illiberal power in many ways similar to Orbán's regime," Karácsony said before the vote.

Since 2010, Orbán has concentrated power and media organs in his hands, and regularly clashed with Brussels over migration and rule-of-law issues. He has also cruised to consecutive landslide victories at the polls, partly due to electoral rule changes he oversaw.

Fidesz had run a highly negative campaign attacking Karácsony for an allegedly pro-migration stance and his "unsuitability" for the job, and Orbán had threatened to withhold cooperation from municipalities lost by his party.

The favourite in the run-up to the vote, Tarlos and Fidesz, which brands itself as Christian-conservatve, were damaged by a sex scandal involving a Fidesz mayor in the western city of Gyor that erupted last week.

"We acknowledge this decision in Budapest, and stand ready to cooperate," Orbán told supporters at a rally.

The elections were seen as a rare chance for the beleaguered opposition to roll back the power of Fidesz, which also hold a supermajority in parliament, and Orbán who has boasted about building an "illiberal state".

Parties from left to right joined forces in an effort to wrest control of Fidesz-held municipalities and prevent an electoral rout for the first time in almost a decade. In many municipalities just one opposition challenger lined up against Fidesz.

Polls had still forecast only slight gains nationwide for the opposition outside the capital, but in another surprise it won 10 of 23 of Hungary's main cities.

The vote was seen as a litmus test for its new strategy of cooperation, which could offer a route to mount a serious challenge to Orbán at the next general election in 2022.

"The win [in Budapest] was just the first step on the road to changing Hungary," said Karácsony.

Andras Biro-Nagy, an analyst with Policy Solutions, said: "It proves that the new strategy of opposition cooperation works, it was its best result in years. Budapest is the big prize, but the breakthrough in numerous provincial cities is at least as important.

"It is the first crack in the Orbán system, and it seems guaranteed that the strategy will continue for 2022," he said.