Hungarian Politics

[HVC]

How many times in the past have diplomatic relations ceased between two EU states?

well they'll maintain diplomatic relations, but on a lower level.

Hungary is going to ghost the Netherlands?

[Tamas]

Apparently, fans of the government have flooded the ambassador's Facebook page, leaving insulting comments in horrible English, and sometimes German 

My personal favourite:

[celedhring]

Descendant? Really harsh, that.

[Tamas]

Recently Valmy referred to how these guys have been using the method of accusing your enemies of the things you do.

I guess Orban lifted it to new hights today in Parliament when he "pleaded with" the opposition "not to be in politics for the power and the money"

[Tamas]

Well, the degradation and disintegration of Hungarian politics must be reaching its final stage. Read on, as it is not everyday you can study live such a process. First of all, remember that Hungary will have general elections Spring of 2018, so emotions are rising.


I am sure I wrote here about the Scorcese-worthy breakup of Orban and his highschool friend a couple of years ago. The ex-friend, Simicska, was the business end of operations and he was the first oligarch to be built up to support the Party. Actually, you can say that it was his shady financial operations that helped the party survive the hard years while Orban led them from one defeat to another.

Orban probably didn't like that there was one person of power left whom he could not directly control, so he built up some counter-oligarchs and backstabbed his highschool buddy.
On the day when that became clear, Simicska was on a verbal rampage to major media outlets. His repeated phrase was "Orban egy geci" which is in non-literal translation equals to "Orban is a cunt!".
That sentence has become a favourite slogan to spray-paint on walls since then, especially since local authorities always rushed to get rid of it.

After all this, Simicska has unofficially started to finance Jobbik, and Jobbik started to unofficially and meekly drift toward the center, since Fidesz has been taking up all the air on the far right. This is very much an ongoing process as Jobbik tries to appeal to the center without losing the rabid lunatic Nazis. A tough challenge.

Simicska's main weapon that got left for him was his vast empire of public advertisement spaces - helped to grab by the Fidesz government during happier times. He had been using it to put Jobbik's adverts on it.

That was until a couple of weeks ago when specific legislation was made to prevent this. Local authorities proceeded to remove the adverts with great speed and efficiency.


So what happened a few days ago? Simicska probably had too much to drink one night, and he strolled through the high street of his home town (Veszprem), and spray-painted the infamous "Orban is a cunt" message on his own -now empty- advert places, until stopped by the police:



Fear not, however, because the next morning, as captured by the camera of an opposition TV, a couple of hooded patriots painted it over. They later were revealed to be prominent local members of the Fidesz youth organisation, Fidelitas:


No police action was taken in this case.

Next episode of this unfolding battle of political titans was Simicska's son, who posted on Facebook a photo of himself painting the symbolic sentence on his family's property, with the caption "Go Dad!"




Not wanting to left behind in this rapid evolution of politics, Momentum, the youngest opposition organisation chimed in, painting "Orban will be jailed" to  some of these iconic advert places:




That brings us to today, and a very minor, always kind of insane political TV personality, former employee of Simicska, but someone who very dramatically and openly deserted him after he broke away from the Dear Leader. She posted a video of herself, going to Simicska's home, and spray-painting "go Lajos" (Simicska's first name) on his wall:
https://www.facebook.com/echotvinformator/videos/1735510066744028/

[The Brain]

Could lose a few years.

[Tamas]

Meanwhile, the government is making a move to disband Jobbik. Probably they only want to keep them in the news as being under police investigation during the campaign, but who knows....

Jobbik allegedly didn't comply with some official authority to submit their finances. Jobbik claims they tried, but it was refused by the authority. And then today the Prosecutor's Office started proceedings against them for failing to submit the papers.

Fidesz joined in calling it the "largest party-financing scandal ever"

Getting all kinds of 1950s vibes.

[Valmy]

Failure to submit paperwork = GREATEST SCANDAL EVAH!!11

[Barrister]

I can't believe I'm asking this, but where is the political left in all of this Tamas?

[Valmy]

I can't believe I'm asking this, but where is the political left in all of this Tamas?

They generally only get about 25% of the vote. They can pretty much only do anything if they have a centrist party to ally with...so Jobbik going less Nazi was pretty much the only danger Fidesz could be in.

Though Tamas has mentioned there is a fake left wing party that Fidesz uses to siphon off their support. Not sure about that.

[Tamas]

I can't believe I'm asking this, but where is the political left in all of this Tamas?

The once grandest, and still strongest, the Socialist are too busy imploding. They had a very talented and determined mayor of one of our big cities as their PM candidate, until about a week ago when he resigned his candidacy, citing constant efforts from within the party to sabotage him, and accusing the part of being under the influence of people on Fidesz' payroll. Which, BTW, would be the only logical explanation for their dysmal performance in opposition the past 8 years.

Then you have DK which is basically the personal party of former PM Gyurcsany, supported by 1-2% of the population, mainly pensioners.

That 1-2%, though, puts them very much in competition with the 4-5 other tiny opposition parties that were all at different points of these 8 years, new opposition hopefuls but failed to grab people's imagination.

Then there is LMP, they might be able to do as much as 5% of the votes. They are supposed to be a modern left/Green party, and in a lot of ways they are Parliamentary opposition with the most cojones, but they are still suspect to me as being a Fidesz decoy. Having at least two senior members with serious family and/or business ties to Fidesz prominents sure doesn't help.

Honorary mention should go out to Momentum, the newest formation.they gained fame by running the successful campaign to gather enough signatures for a national referendum against hosting the Olympics in 2024. They are young and determined, but not only they have been losing momentum (haha), but also their leadership creeps me out. Look like some major sociopaths to me.


Also, it is worth mentioning that there is expected to be around 400 political parties running in the election next year, about 12-20 of these will be able to field a candidate in all voting districts, the rest will have limited to a few.

This is because 4 years ago the government had this genius new law. It is extremely easy to ground a party and start receiving financial support for campaigning from the state, with extremely lacks rules on what you can spend it on. As such, forming a tiny party to run in a few districts has become the scammer's wet dream.

[PJL]

Kind of reminds me of the saying 'To have total control you must control both sides of the law', but looks like Fidez are trying to do that with all parties that are serious contenders to their rule.

[Tamas]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-13/orban-ally-flaunts-power-as-mol-cuts-prices-in-tax-chief-s-city

For an example of the government's micromanagement of Hungary's economy, consider the way the head of the tax authority says he got the country's biggest refiner to cut fuel prices at his local service station.

Andras Tallai, who runs the tax authority in his capacity as state secretary in Prime Minister Viktor Orban's government, boasted on Facebook over the weekend about talking Mol Nyrt. into cutting fuel prices in his constituency of Mezokovesd, a city of about 17,000 people 130 kilometers (81 miles) east of Budapest.

"I've attended to fuel prices in Mezokovesd and its vicinity based on a citizen's request," Tallai, who's also obtained lavish state and corporate subsidies for the local first-division soccer team, said in the Facebook post. "We negotiated with officials at Mol and, as a result, gasoline prices have fallen 11 forint and diesel by 5 forint compared with October 31."




While Orban has made energy price cuts a campaign theme before, the sudden focus on a single constituency shows the ruling party's willingness to intervene in the economy for political gain. Hungary is holding parliamentary elections next year, with Orban's Fidesz party in full campaign mode despite already leading by a wide margin in all opinion polls.

'Price Equalization'

The country was ranked 101st of 137 nations for institutional quality in the World Economic Forum's 2017 Global Competitiveness Report, lagging countries including Russia, Malawi and Uganda.

Tallai said the "equalization" of prices was set to continue in the region. After his intervention, the price of the most commonly used blend at the Mol station in Mezokovesd was still 2.6 percent higher than the national average of 365 forint ($1.36) per liter, with prices ranging from 346 forint to 416 forint across the country, according to the holtankoljak.hu price comparison website.

Mol, in which the government owns a quarter, declined to immediately comment on the rationale for the price change. The Mol price reduction in Mezokovesd compares with a national average increase of 16 forint for a liter (0.26 gallon) of unleaded petrol and 11 forint for diesel across all brands this month, according to the holtankoljak.hu.

Best bit: a TV news interview with one of the locals, a well dressed lady in her 60s. She is saying "I agree with it, because Tallai comrade..." then she realised what she said out of old reflexes, and stopped

[Tamas]

Jobbik's leadership is holding an emergency meeting as the party has basically been made to default: the financial authority has issued  a roughly 1 million euros fine on them as well as reducing the subsidies they receive with the same amount, so effectively fining them for 2 million euros.

Jobbik has been desperately trying to climb out of the right wing, where Fidesz has sucked out all the air from them, to the centre largely abandoned by Fidesz.

Despite this being far from a full success, polls suggest they are the second most popular party in the country (still way, way, way behind Fidesz though, and even further from the biggest group the uncertain ones, who constitute 40% of voters).

Their drive to the middle has also been driven by Fidesz's ex-financier oligarch (see pictured post above).

I won't shed a tear for them, but the way they are being destroyed is very worrisome. The financial authority refused to accept the party's financial records they wanted to submit to prove their innocence. They just used whatever information they claimed they have, and effectively destroyed the party. Not any  better than any mock trials.

I wonder how long the EU will go along financing this regime.

[The Larch]

Hey Tamas, I just read that Hungary, together with the Czech Republic, will follow the US lead and move their embassies in Israel to Jerusalem as well. Has something been said back home about this?