Hungarian Politics

[Martim Silva]

They could use the low interest loans from the IMF very much (we sell bonds around 6-7% now and we sold them even worse at the start of this year. With -1% GDP "growth" projected, that's quite a steep price).
However, IMF wants a look in your books and tell you what to spend on. That's NOT how these guys roll. Their rule has been characterized not just by a de facto constitutional coup de etat but also rampant corruption and shameless lawmaking to directly benefit the sponsors of the party.

Why are you frothing?

We're considered a wonderful democracy by the world, we enjoy a -3% GDP "growth", depend on foreign generosity to have any kind of cash, and still we are refusing the IMF/EC/ECB advice on where to spend stuff.

Our democratic politicians don't want anything to damage their own self-interest, so instead of accepting the IMF's suggestion to cut state expenditure, they've announed a 125% hike on the taxes on the poorest, and put the tax rate on those who make more than $95k/year to 65% (applicable on income earned through the salary, of course. Never on gains made on stock market speculation, bonuses or business 'deals' made by highborns).

The new measures - which also cut by 6% the unemployment benefits earned by the poorer workers who just lost their jobs - will put 30% of the population below poverty line, and 20% won't be able to afford housing (and perhaps not even food).

Do you really want to emulate us?

[Ed Anger]

WONDERFUL OPPORTUNITY FOR YOU PEOPLE!

A bill proposed by a government MP wants to offer Hungarian citizenship in exchange of the purchase of 250 000 euros worth of Hungarian bonds!

Damn, that is cheap. Throw in two non tattooed Hungarian hotties and I will invest.

[Tamas]

non tattooed ones? That's tough.


Anyways, this system here breeds the servile assholes of course. Like, this regional newspaper had an article and a picture about some kind of kids charity shit. They felt obliged to erase the Socialist mayor who sponsored it though. To their bad luck, the Internet has been invented.

[Barrister]

WONDERFUL OPPORTUNITY FOR YOU PEOPLE!

A bill proposed by a government MP wants to offer Hungarian citizenship in exchange of the purchase of 250 000 euros worth of Hungarian bonds!

That's not a terrible proposition, since Hungary is in the EU and you can then live and work anywhere you'd like within the EU.  And while Hungarian bonds are hardly the best investment out there they're probably not going to become completely worthless - even Argentina paid its bondholders some amount of money.

[Ed Anger]

I'll take 4 girls from that pic then.

[Sheilbh]

non tattooed ones? That's tough.


Anyways, this system here breeds the servile assholes of course. Like, this regional newspaper had an article and a picture about some kind of kids charity shit. They felt obliged to erase the Socialist mayor who sponsored it though. To their bad luck, the Internet has been invented.

We had the opposite here.  A Tory candidate campaigned to allow a family of asylum seekers to stay - they'd lived in Weymouth for about 10 years and had real fears of being forced to go back to Malawi, they had a lot of local support (story here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/aug/26/immigration.immigrationandpublicservices ).  When it came to the election, however, he changed the picture for his electoral leaflets:

[Count]

I saw this thread for the first time today and I have to say it's one of the most interesting and informative on Languish. 

You may now return to regularly scheduled anti-Roma racism. 

[Tamas]

non tattooed ones? That's tough.


Anyways, this system here breeds the servile assholes of course. Like, this regional newspaper had an article and a picture about some kind of kids charity shit. They felt obliged to erase the Socialist mayor who sponsored it though. To their bad luck, the Internet has been invented.

We had the opposite here.  A Tory candidate campaigned to allow a family of asylum seekers to stay - they'd lived in Weymouth for about 10 years and had real fears of being forced to go back to Malawi, they had a lot of local support (story here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/aug/26/immigration.immigrationandpublicservices ).  When it came to the election, however, he changed the picture for his electoral leaflets:

[Tamas]

I saw this thread for the first time today and I have to say it's one of the most interesting and informative on Languish. 

You may now return to regularly scheduled anti-Roma racism. 

thanks!

[Tamas]

ELECTION LAW TIME!!


On Monday, Parlaiment debated the new election law, and they accepted the constitution changes allowing that new law.

That was needed because of the voter registration thingie. One of their many ways of reducing democracy. Before Americans and such wonder why registration is a big deal, it is a big deal because unlike your free countries, here the state runs a quite comprehensive list of all of it's citizens. My name, address, date of birth, criminal record (and I think marital status, perhaps even place of work) are all nicely stored in a central database accessible for public administration. That is why we had no voter registration before. There is no need for it. Voting right is universal and the state knows full well which citizens live in a given district anyways.

But they wanted to decrease the number of "impulse voters" so now you have to register in person or on the Internet (access to the relevant government page is granted after you personally visit the relevant office), and registration closes 15 days before the vote.

Funnily enough, you can nominate people even if you are not registered. Why? Because reducing the numbers of impulse voters and increasing the number of candidates both increase the chances of a FIDESZ victory, based on the single-round, winner-takes-it-all new system they are introducing.

Anyways, so there was debate on the law on Monday. Vote was to be made (and was indeed made) on Tuesday.
So they closed the debate Monday evening right. Next morning, one of the FIDESZ MPs (funnily enough, the only MP in modern history for whom there has been a proven election fraud done, in 2002) arrived to work with 65 pages worth of modifications to the law. The opposition had an hour to read it, analyze it, and then vote on it. Collective opposition tantrum gave them a few more hours to do the same.

Then it was accepted by the government majority of course.

What they did, among other things, was further tweak the borders of some of the election districts (I assume based on latest polls), ease on the registration-related restrictions (coming up with the rules I outlined above), and declare that associations are not eligible to run on the elections. Since this is a world of totally unrelated coincidences, Bajnai, whom  mentioned before, announced his association to organize the opposition last week. Now they will need to find an other form of organization.

So there you go. There will be elections (at least by the looks of it now), but the law has been carefully tweaked, lacking any kind of internal logic or consistence, to make sure FIDESZ have all the advantages, short of just not holding the election at all.

Oh, and also, the party-delegated observers in the district will have less rights than they had. They will not be allowed to participate in the counting of the votes. Also, since now there will be more foreign votes coming to embassies (since all Hungarian citizens can vote, even if they have no residence in Hungary), observers in those embassies will also not be permitted to participate in the count of the votes.

[Tamas]

Orban hails from a small village in my county. He loves football, he kept being a footballer of the village's team until a couple of years ago or so.

Already the biggest and most expensive youth football training institution is in the village, and now they have received 2.8 billion forints of state money to build a stadium with seats three times the number of the village's entire population 

That 2.8 billion grant is exactly 1 billion more than what handball, water polo, basketball, and hockey got from the state, combined.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Orban hails from a small village in my county. He loves football, he kept being a footballer of the village's team until a couple of years ago or so.

Already the biggest and most expensive youth football training institution is in the village, and now they have received 2.8 billion forints of state money to build a stadium with seats three times the number of the village's entire population 

That 2.8 billion grant is exactly 1 billion more than what handball, water polo, basketball, and hockey got from the state, combined.

worse than italians. At least il cavaliere had the decency to put his stadium in Milan

[Tamas]

The scale at which the election law is being custom-made for FIDESZ needs is horrible.

For example, two recent modifications to the bill:
-FIDESZ has one big advantage over everyone else: a core (big) group of supporters who are easy to mobilize to wave the Good Leader's name on signs
Therefore what they are doing? They keep the ban on campaigning on TV during election day and the day before it, but it will be alright to hold rallys.

-The big question about the next election: will the opposition muster enough numbers to defeat FIDESZ despite the field leaning toward them? Well, they are making sure that clues on this will remain classified, as it will be forbidden to publish polling data, half year from election day.

[Syt]

it will be forbidden to publish polling data, half year from election day.

Wait, what? 

[Martinus]

Why are Hungarians so contrarian? All the world is going in the right direction except Hungary.