Hungarian Politics

[The Brain]

I do very much hope, as much as that pains me, that all NATO states treat the Hungarian government as hostile agents and keep classified stuff well away from them, because clearly they must assume that anything the Hungarian government reads the Russians are reading as well.

Sweden even sold some extra Gripens to Hungary recently. It was probably considered reasonable as it was part of the pricetag for NATO membership, and information on the Gripen C system is already known to Russia since Hungary has had it for years.

Not even a crappy er.. special export version to Magyaristan? 

Well at least the C version isn't the most modern one.

[Tamas]

There's a network of regional newspapers in the country (basically, a separate daily newspaper per county, more or less) . One thing the syphoned EU money was used for is to buy ALL of them for Orban and run them centralised.

So this week, they have been delivering free copies, with articles like:

"We must be terrified of nuclear weapons"
"Fico was shot by a pro-war assailant"



"Brussels wants to flood us with migrants"
"It highlights Europe's weakness that we are on the brink of a world war"

[Tamas]

Well, worst EU election result for Fidesz, ever, in terms of proportion of votes. But, that still means well over 40% of votes cast on them.

The brand-new party of Peter Magyar (the former Fidesz mandarin minister ex-husband I posted about) exploded into the scene, though, taking nearly 30% of the votes with Magyar essentially projecting the 1998-2002-era Fidesz. i.e. nationalistic conservative with a lot of pathos and subdued Western leaning in values and policy.

His success, however, effectively destroyed the old opposition. The only party (alliance) of the Left who managed to get EU seats (the socialist alliance led by Universal Boogeyman Gyurcsany's wife) also got decimated compared to their previous results. Plus Afd-ally nazis also got a seat but they are opposition the way Putin's opposition parties are, so, not at all.


Magyar's success is very impressive and will completely upend the routine of the past 14 years. Orban's opposition (as in, in the general populace) has been desperate so I know that liberal/leftie people (such as, my parents) covered their noses and voted on him once it was looking obvious momentum is behind him (and the election rules Orban introduced mean you HAVE to have a single election entity opposing Fidesz to have even a theoretical chance).

But equally, I think the sad truth behind his success is that a lot of people while hating Orban would never vote to a party that is -or allied with- a formation they consider Left/Liberal. Magyar is offering an out to these people - they partake while covered head to toe in national flags talking about Hungary being blessed by God and all that sort of stuff.

So now Magyar has two years to build up an actual national-level party without being destroyed by Fidesz propaganda and moles. He needs to continue refuse cooperation with the "old opposition". The hope (or more likely, delusion) of many Left voters is that once Magyar has won and restored democracy, they'll have a Left they can return to and start voting on again.

What is certain now, however, that the Left in Hungary does not exist, politically. They'll continue to have seats in Parliament to continue being human decoration for Fidesz' pretense of democracy like they have been, but very few people are going to vote for them on the national election in two years, seeing proof how those votes would be wasted.

Finally, though, as a reality check, I should point out that due to national election rules subsidising the strongest party, if yesterday's votes were cast on the national election, Fidesz would have gotten yet another 2/3rd absolute majority in Parliament.

[Josquius]

This other guy offers anything different at all? Democracy?

[Tamas]

This other guy offers anything different at all? Democracy?

Well, that's what he claims. And ending corruption. My biggest problem with him (despite being a very archetypical arrogant member of the Right) is that he is only marginally less dismissive of the EU and war in Ukraine than Orban himself.

Basically, he sounded exactly like you'd expect somebody to sound who lived his life in the Orban-created ideological bubble, just without the rabid dog aspect. In the last month or two he has refined his stance, but whether that's a genuine learning from his (very impressive, btw) tour of the country before the election, or just choosing his words better, we won't know until he comes to power.


The way I am trying to look at it is that even if he just ends up replacing Orban on the throne and will continue exactly like him, that still will have caused chaos and thus delay in the complete Russification of the country.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

So a case of small favours being the best possible.

[Tamas]

There might be a scandal brewing with the (chief) mayoral election results in Budapest, although it depends on what the "result" of the recount will be.

I'll try a brief summary:

The incumbent is a leftie liberal type. I don't think he achieved much at all but you try to achieve something when Orban effectively controls your budget and considers you an enemy.

There were two opponents to run against him: a lady from Fidesz whose nomination made it obvious (or so it seemed) that Fidesz gave up the race before it started.

Then also one of the so-called "opposition" parties (run by the son of one of the richest pro-Orban oligarchs) supported the running of an "independent" candidate - a guy who has close family ties to the Fidesz leadership and has had a reputation of being a talented technocrat. This stems from him being named boss of the Budapest public transport company some years back at a very young age. His reign resulted in huge losses in failed and disastrous projects though, so beats me why people think he knows what he is doing. The way I see it, he is a nerd very much into public transport and his family bought him his dream job.

Anyways, two days before the election -and hours before the deadline to do so- the Fidesz lady resigned from the race, and the mighty Fidesz propaganda machine got behind the "independent" transport nerd with full force and vigor.

What it meant was that civil servants had to manually cross her name off of 2+ million ballot papers.

Result of the election? The incumbent won, but by the tiniest possible margins: less than 300 votes (in a city of circa 2 million). There were over 24 thousand invalid votes.

Rumours emerged that a lot of these invalid votes were cast on the crossed-out Fidesz lady. The transport nerd used this to challenge the result and demand a recount. Which he has been granted today.

The argument is that there were many invalid votes, allegedly, where a vote was simultaneously cast on the crossed-off Fidesz lady, and one of the other candidates (no doubt meaning the transport nerd). Now, the election authority ruled, the proper way to handle these would have been to cast this vote for the non-crossed out candidate, but -allegedly- not all districts did so.

So now there'll be a recount. I find it scandalous, although not surprising, that a ballot paper with two votes can be then granted to one of the candidates, even if one "vote" was cast on an invalid candidate. Especially in a country like Hungary now, what will it take for Fidesz-delegates at the district to sneak in an extra X mark on ballots which only had one for the Fidesz lady? They need less than 400 such cheats out of 24 thousand papers.

But, actually, I am hoping they'll declare for the transport nerd. It will hurt the regime's legitimacy .

EDIT: so actually, the correct way to invalidate a ballot is to write on its back the reason, so any one already invalidated because of a single vote cast on the invalid candidate cannot have just a second X added without being busted.

Still feels fishy.

[Josquius]

Got to say, transport nerd with regime backing doesn't sound so bad to me... :p

Weird if the two votes count. In the UK voting for two candidates is one of the key ways your vote is invalid. You can write whatever you want on the paper (except stuff that identifies you) but if you leave it unclear who you are voting for it's invalid.

I of course intend to vote in this manner. Apparently it's common such votes get examined with the candidates present.

[Tamas]

Sure but the nerd has already failed spectacularly with managing the same city's public transport. His original nepotistic appointment was justified by saying that he is a prodigy and it seems to have stuck despite the failures.

I will give him one thing though, he is a better politician than man ly thought, on their TV debate with the incumbent he quite trounced the latter.

[Tamas]

The incumbent mayor is now likely to request a repeat of the vote, he'll be holding a press conference in a couple of hours.

According to him, the election authority, for his review of Transport Nerd's complaints, did not request the ballot boxes to be submitted to them, just instructed the local councils in charge of them to open them, remove the (separately batched inside) invalidated ballots and send those over. The incumbent's complaint is that they did not make it mandatory that the reopening of the boxes could only happen with opposition delegates present. He alleges that he has heard of several instances that the (Fidesz) local civil servants opened the boxes by the time the opposition delegates could get there.


All of the above, even if true, can be explained away with incompetence, of course. But this is Hungary, and it would be right on schedule to make the next step toward a Putinist system by such "light prodding" of the election results to come out to the light due to circumstances. Timing would make sense as well. The economy is in a worrying state, the state budget is an absolute mess, and most importantly for Orban, rumblings within the party ranks clearly have been increasing since the EU payouts stopped.

I think it'd make a lot of sense that he decides they should seize this opportunity and make sure they get a Budapest mayor who won't be stopping them from sucking the city dry.

[Tamas]

Recount is underway, although yesterday had a lot of irregularities as I mentioned, ballot boxes reopened with only Fidesz delegates present etc.

Anyways, a legal trivia, I present you a previously invalidated, now made valid for Vitezy (the transport nerd):


It is of course because the lines happen to cross INSIDE Vitezy's circle.

[Tamas]

What's interesting for me and I am not seeing others mentioning it is how the design of the ballot paper kinda' makes your eyes focus to the middle (which isn't framed by the light-coloured frame). Those two candidtes happen to be the (resigned) Fidesz candidate and the Fidesz trojan horse transport nerd:



Giving me nazi JA/nein box vibes.

[Tamas]

After recount of the not so invalid votes, incumbent still won by a total of 41 votes.

He still wants a repeat of the election though I am guessing for consistency with what he was saying yesterday.

[Tamas]

Just read that Hungary is doing its bit to support Russian war efforts - the country has purchased 59% more natural gas from Russia than this time last year. While it is priced 7% over the market price on the Dutch market.