Hungarian Politics

[Tamas]

This is from October but only discovered now.

There are a couple of juicy things about this:

1. She is not Orban's wife, she is Orban's eldest daughter. The guy next to her is her husband, and recent public space - lighting mogul (his companies making huge money out of selling absolutely abysmal led lights for towns)

2. Point 1 isn't that important, just shows Bahrein's officials as morons, but the daughter and her husband has ZERO public jobs or functions. NOTHING. ZIP. Yet they were negotiating on behalf of Hungary?!

The daughter, Rachel, has been joked as heir apparent but looks like she actually IS being groomed to take over.

So far there has been only signs of her joining the clan as a "working girl" - ever since she finished her tourism school, Lorinc Meszaros, mayor of Orban's village, recent multibillionaire, and quite clearly the official holder of Orban's stolen wealth, has been buying hotels and restaurants like there is no tomorrow.

[Martinus]

See, people? If Orban's daughter can do it, Ivanka sure can.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Orban, making Hungary Great Again!

[Syt]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/02/hungarian-vote-on-refugees-will-not-take-place-suggest-first-poll-results

Hungary's refugee referendum not valid after voters stay away

PM Viktor Orbán fails to convince 50% of electorate to turn out, but those who did so voted to exclude new refugees

The Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has failed to convince a majority of his population to vote in a referendum on closing the door to refugees, rendering the result invalid and undermining his campaign for a cultural counter-revolution within the European Union.

More than 95% of participants in Sunday's referendum sided with Orbán by voting against the admission of refugees to Hungary, allowing him to claim an "outstanding" victory. But more than half of the electorate stayed at home, rendering the process constitutionally null and void.

Orbán himself put a positive spin on the low turnout. He argued that while "a valid [referendum] is always better than an invalid [referendum]" the extremely high proportion of no-voters still gave him a mandate to go to Brussels next week "to ensure that we should not be forced to accept in Hungary people we don't want to live with".

He argued that the poll would encourage a wave of similar votes across the EU. "We are proud that we are the first," he said.

The result, though, gives potential respite to the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and EU officials in Brussels, whose comparatively progressive refugee policies and liberal political outlook had been under sustained assault from Orbán in recent months.

Internationally, Orbán's referendum was seen as a plebiscite on not just the EU's refugee-sharing quota – which would see just 1,294 refugees resettled in Hungary from Greece and Italy – but on the role of nation state and the future of liberal democracy within the EU.

Presenting himself as the voice of the European masses, Orbán had called for a cultural rebellion within the EU, praised aspects of illiberal strongman leadership that are anathema to the EU's professed values and opposed attempts to share responsibility for refugees between EU states.

The refugee referendum was an attempt to build support for this vision and Orbán hoped that a strong turnout would lead to a series of copycat votes across the continent. But despite the biggest and most divisive advertising campaign in Hungarian history, Orbán failed to entice enough voters to the ballot box.

Initial results suggested that about 45% of the Hungarian electorate participated, significantly less than the 50% threshold needed to validate the referendum.

This could slow Orbán's political momentum within Europe, said András Bíró-Nagy, a former EU official, and a fellow at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. "How can he win a cultural counter-revolution in Europe if he can't get a valid referendum result on his strongest issue in his own country?" Bíró-Nagy asked.

The deputy head of Orbán's party, Fidesz, also framed the vote as a triumph. "Today is a sweeping victory for all those who reject the EU's mandatory, unlimited quotas," said Gergely Gulyás. "It is a sweeping victory for all those who believe that the foundations of a strong European Union can only be the strong nation states."

But Fidesz's critics said the party had exaggerated the result. Viktor Szigetvári, the leader of Együtt, a liberal opposition party, said: "In his speech, the prime minister failed to recognise the reality. The majority of Hungarians stayed away from the polls and what's been left behind is a divided country. To heal this, we need a change in government."

Analysts said that the low turnout was ultimately underwhelming for a man who bases his arguments on their popular appeal and whose toxic advertising campaign was five times larger than the next biggest in Hungarian history. Of Hungary's 20,000 advertising hoardings, 5,888 were used for the referendum campaign – considerably more than the 1,200 used by a tobacco firm in the mid-1990s, according to research by Transparency International.

Csaba Tóth, strategy director at the Republikon thinktank, said: "It's a disappointment for him, but it doesn't make it impossible for him to claim it as a victory; there are still more than three million people voting for him. But expectations were higher. Despite the very distorted media landscape, and despite all this advertising, it was only enough to mobilise voters from Fidesz and Jobbik," a far-right opposition party.

Liberal opposition politicians argued that the referendum was an attempt to distract from Orbán's domestic failures and told their supporters to boycott the vote in order to render it invalid. Questions were raised over the amount of state funds that were used to pay for referendum adverts in government-friendly media outlets or on hoardings owned by government allies.

The government denies any wrongdoing and says the adverts were placed in a "completely transparent" manner. But Transparency International and other academic researchers queried the process.

Attila Bátorfy, a researcher on media affairs at the Central European University, said: "Channelling state funds to media outlets that are owned by oligarchs allied to the governments and have viewership that is lower their competitors – what's the problem with that? It's using state funds to prop up the government's private media backers, for the purposes of drumming up support for the government's position."

Government critics condemned the divisive tone of Orbán's campaign. He and his colleagues frequently linked refugees to terrorism and relentlessly plugged their message, even during half-time advertising breaks at the European football championships in June.

Zsuzsanna Vajna, a 79-year-old Holocaust survivor who remembers being made to walk up and down the banks of the Danube while Hungarian Nazis shot other Jews into the river, said the stigmatisation of refugees reminded her of the incitement against Jews during her childhood.

"It very much feels like the atmosphere in the 30s before the second world war," Vajna said. "In the 1930s, we were in a very bad economic situation. People had to be blamed, and then it was the Jews. And that's what I'm reminded of when I read the Hungarian government's propaganda. It's very dangerous. Because it can contaminate all of Europe."

German media say the campaign cost a total of €40,000,000 - clearly money well spent.

[Tonitrus]

I'm sure the money went to all the right people.

[Tamas]

I'm sure the money went to all the right people.

Indeed!


Also there were more invalid votes than ever, as that was a form of protest (other was staying away).

The government media is talking about "big success" of course but it is obvious to everyone this is a big slap in the face. For the past 6 months or so the entire propaganda machine was only working on scaring people into stopping the giant wave of muslim terrorists about to invade in the guise of refugees.

Numbers-wise, the Fidesz and Jobbik voters turned up and cast their No vote as required, but nobody else gave a damn. A proof that at best Fidesz have maintained their core supporters but no scaremongering can convince anyone else to believe them.

I wonder if this will prompt them to de-construct democracy even quicker, as they are way past the point of no return in terms of corruption cases and such that would get them in serious trouble if they ever lost the grip on power.

[Tamas]

Looks like, today is going to be an important milestone in the disassembling of Hungarian democracy, a process that has been going on since 2010.

This morning, out of the blue for everyone, especially the journalists working there, the publisher of the new daily newspaper "Népszabadság" announced it halts the publication of the newspaper until "further reorganisation". They have shut down the online edition as well, but somebody among the employees have retained access to their Facebook page and wrote there how they were unaware of this until learning about it from the news.

Népszabadság was THE newspaper of the moderate left. It always had a mixed reputation, as it was THE newspaper of the communist government during the communist era, but still, they were the most publicity space for the left (liberals included), and IIRC they remained the biggest newspaper (most subscribers and most copies sold) for almost all of the past 25 years.

Just a month or so ago there were rumors that Orban's village mayor and general holder of his wealth, Mr. Meszaros was lurking around the publisher of the paper.

The paper itself did not stop with its opposition voice, in fact the last few weeks they uncovered a number of juicy stuff:
-They busted the president of the national bank, that he has been giving lucrative executive positions for her lover first in the national bank then in the "foundations" created by the national bank

-Probably more importantly, they made public a recent story about Antal Rogan, who has a fancy title but in practice he is Minister of Propaganda. They wrote about how on the weekend of the "very important national referendum" (you could hear about it from international news as well) he went, via helicopter, to the wedding of a friend of his wife, which seemed rather careless and reckless when the whole propaganda machine was yelling at people how that Sunday was to decide the fate of the country for generations to come.

The groom, maybe not coincidentally, was the richest businessman of the border region with Ukraine. Little is known of the guy, except that he is stinking rich. Being next door to the most lucrative smuggling route of the country, it is hard to not assume that's where his immense wealth is from.
At any rate, it seemed like his wedding could not be missed by Mr. Rogan.

The newspaper chased the story relentlessly. For example, initial replies from the minister told the press he had to take the helicopter as an emergency solution because they were late.
But reporters went to the scene of the wedding and saw evidence of, and talked to people who confirmed that a week before the wedding they were told to create a helicopter landing site next to the wedding's premises, so it was hardly a spur of the moment thing.

Of course, using a helicopter is hardly a big deal, but Mr. Rogan is one of the most obviously corrupt members of government, pressure on him has been mounting for about a year now.

And now, when the most sensitive story about him is published (common people's eyebrows are not raised by billions stolen as they can't fathom the amount, but tell them he uses helicopters to attend luxurious weddings and that they can understand), the publishing newspaper is abruptly closed...

[Maladict]

Wow 

[Valmy]

Were things really that bad under the Habsburgs?

[HVC]

Were things really that bad under the Habsburgs?

They need a strong Germanic hand to guide them

[Martinus]

Were things really that bad under the Habsburgs?

They need a strong Germanic hand to guide them

Why else do you think we have the EU?

[HVC]

Were things really that bad under the Habsburgs?

They need a strong Germanic hand to guide them

Why else do you think we have the EU?

It needs to be stronger and with more direct power. If Hungarian history has told us over the last 1000 years, is that anytime Hungarians are in charge of Hungary they manage to mess things up

[Tamas]

This is from October but only discovered now.

There are a couple of juicy things about this:

1. She is not Orban's wife, she is Orban's eldest daughter. The guy next to her is her husband, and recent public space - lighting mogul (his companies making huge money out of selling absolutely abysmal led lights for towns)

2. Point 1 isn't that important, just shows Bahrein's officials as morons, but the daughter and her husband has ZERO public jobs or functions. NOTHING. ZIP. Yet they were negotiating on behalf of Hungary?!

The daughter, Rachel, has been joked as heir apparent but looks like she actually IS being groomed to take over.

So far there has been only signs of her joining the clan as a "working girl" - ever since she finished her tourism school, Lorinc Meszaros, mayor of Orban's village, recent multibillionaire, and quite clearly the official holder of Orban's stolen wealth, has been buying hotels and restaurants like there is no tomorrow.

To add to this story, Tiborcz, Orban's son in law (blond guy on the pic) has been seen in discussions with the lawyer and general caretaker guy (in Hungary at least) of the Saud-Arabian "businessman" Ghaith Pharaon.
Not a huge shock as indirectly they have had several big value business transaction, in the form of Hungarian companies where Tiborcz is an owner, selling valuable properties to Mr. Pharaon.

Ghaith Pharaon has also recently bought the house just across the street from Orban's home in Budapest.

Mr. Pharaon made top 10 in Forbes "most wanted white collar criminal" list in 2008, and at his former bank, the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, a 1992 US Senate report found evidence of:
money laundering, supporting of terrorism, supporting of illegal immigration, bribery, and misuse/abuse of nuclear technology.


Just reporting in case anybody has any doubts left about Hungary being in the hand of an organised crime ring.

[Martinus]

Were things really that bad under the Habsburgs?

They need a strong Germanic hand to guide them

Why else do you think we have the EU?

It needs to be stronger and with more direct power. If Hungarian history has told us over the last 1000 years, is that anytime Hungarians are in charge of Hungary they manage to mess things up

Fortunately, such periods are very rare.

[garbon]

Just reporting in case anybody has any doubts left about Hungary being in the hand of an organised crime ring.