Hungarian Politics

[Tamas]

-during election campaigns, campaigning in any form of media but the state-ran can be banned.

Can you elaborate? Would online ad campaigns/websites be forbidden?

AFAIK yes. Altough the law only gives the option to ban these, doesnt outright ban them. that works great in general with the media by the way. They gave themselves the option to issue crippling fines, and so both big private TV channels ceased basically all political coverages in their news, and stopping political shows.

[Tamas]

the currently ongoing "debate" in parliament is a disgrace. Since they will also vote on that law affecting electricity bills which I mentioned, the awaited Orban speech at start were "ENTIRELY" about  how they decreased the burdens of the common people (they decreased utility bills by 10% by decree at the start of this year).
And this being a cowardly socialist hellhole, what did the opposition answer? Socialists: "it was well in time to finally do somethig for the people!" nazis: "they should decrease it 30%"

And then, as a small ex-socialist faction demonstrated with showing a big "dictatorship!" display, Orban turned that around, and declared it is to protect the big electricity companies.

so that is the strategy for today: while they make a major step in turning us into Belorussia, they (apparently successfully) try to switch conversation to how awesomly they decreased living costs (altough you could argue with a worthless currency, negative "growth" and 5% inflation what difference their stunt does).

[Tamas]

BTW as part of that rhetoric, Orban in his speech urged the people to "rebel against the utility companies"

[Tamas]

Looks like they also figured out they could use this "10% bill decrease" stunt to refresh their local databases on people. A few years ago one of their prominent members got into a scandal for being busted on using a sophisticated list of all voters in his town, ranking them based on their feelings toward FIDESZ.

What they will do now is to have "approach all families" to sign for supporting FIDESZ's "efforts" for "decreasing the utility bills".

So you can choose between giving your name to this disgraceful masquerade of showcased governemt support, or decline signing it and face the prospect of entering the database as an enemy.

[Valmy]

BTW as part of that rhetoric, Orban in his speech urged the people to "rebel against the utility companies"

Can we do that without losing utilities services?

[Syt]

They'll probably pass a law for that. Or that uitility companies can never, ever cut services.

[Sheilbh]

They'll probably pass a law for that. Or that uitility companies can never, ever cut services.

They'll probably put it into the constitution as part of the inviolable Christian-Magyar patrimony of St Stephen

[Neil]

So when does the irredentism start up?

[Tamas]

A stunt from the demonstrations of recent days (most notably a flash mob of a few young people got themselves into the yard of the fidesz party hq, triggering a counter-demo from fidesz supporting elderly people), was to read quotes supporting the opposition's stance on the matters at hand - from Orban himself. Since he went from radical liberal through moderate centrist and then elitist conservative to leader of plebs, he has contradicted himself A LOT. As to how much: these youngsters I mentioned managed to have the pro-fidesz mob boo and hiss while listening to the readout of their leaders' speech (since they didn't realise it wasn't an original opposition piece)  from.... 2007.
We have always been at war wit Eurasia

[PJL]

Well think yourself lucky that Orban more of a Mussolini rather than a Hitler. He could have done real damage otherwise.

[Martinus]

I just wonder why the EU bothers with being upset about this.

Just suspend Hungary's member rights and if they persist kick them out of the EU. Then wait 10 years and send in the peacekeeping forces. Problem solved.

[Tamas]

heh, I read there were rumblings in the EU about suspending the voting rights of Hungary.

If that happens, time to pack I guess, because all it will accomplish is Orban sending them a "thank you!" note and use it as a CB to leave and be left alone to his own agenda.

[The Larch]

Hey Tamas, how does the whole "you must stay for 2 years in the country after finishing university" work? I guess that it flies in the face of the EU's freedom of movement for workers, but I guess that Orban isn't worried about it.

[Martinus]

Hey Tamas, how does the whole "you must stay for 2 years in the country after finishing university" work? I guess that it flies in the face of the EU's freedom of movement for workers, but I guess that Orban isn't worried about it.

I don't think it does unless you can show how it damages non-Hungarians - the rules are usually emforced in a way to prevent discrimination of non-nationals, not vice-versa.

[Solmyr]

I guess the real question is how is the government planning to prevent people from leaving.