Hungarian Politics

[Ed Anger]

The take on the subject by government MPs: "women should give birth to children, not try to express themselves and their ambitions"

That sounds like an Ed Anger troll.

HEY NOW

[Tamas]

I might do a longer post on how the deterioration of the country continues unhindered, but for now I just want to show you these very recent, government-payed ad in major newspapers:



first on the left: "what we expect from the IMF? RESPECT, TRUST! We will not sacrifice Hungary's independence"
second: "DECREASED SUPPORT FOR FAMILIES We will not yield to the IMF!"
third: "PROPERTY TAX We will not yield to the IMF!"

[clandestino]

I don't understand it, so the governmment asks for the "help" of the IMF and then proceeds to sabotage its work in the newspapers?

That's so odd.

[Tamas]

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.
Obviously you can't do that when somebody is watching the books over your shoulder.

As a result they have been conducting heavy anti-IMF propaganda ever since they realized they can't get the loan to spend it as they see fit. However, they are totally incompetent in not running the country's economy to the ground, so they need more money. Therefore, I see two possible scenarios:

-paradoxically, they are REALLY close to signing a deal with the IMF, but they think that even they cannot go from "IMF is teh devil" to "we signed a deal, it's fine, really" and not lose face. So, they have been pretending to have received outrageous demands from the IMF to DESTROY TEH PEOPLE, and they are posing to be locked in this life-death struggle against the IMF, who REALLY REALLY wants to loan us money, but we don't need it. So after this campaign of pretending the outrageous demands, they can sign the real deal which of course will be much milder (anything but a terror bombing campaign would be milder than what they lie to come from the IMF), aaand as a result they can claim victory (having forced mighty IMF to agree to the milder -ie. real- terms)

-they don't want an IMF deal, but they have had to keep the image of negotiations up, and it is slowly time to let that go. Why? Because the country's Central Bank has a huge foreign currency reserve, acquired during the 2008 crisis to shield the national currency from possible speculative attacks. The current C. Bank prez have been keeping their grabby hands away, but his mandate ends next March and they can have their guy take charge and give the reserve to the budget, giving them enough money to start spending and win the election in '14. That would also destroy the last reserves of our banks and economy and would surely destroy the country in mid-term, but that's hardly their worry now is it.

[Valmy]

I don't understand it, so the governmment asks for the "help" of the IMF and then proceeds to sabotage its work in the newspapers?

That's so odd.

Well the Argentine Government borrows massive amounts of money from people and then calls them vultures and thieves when they want to be paid back.  It is a game lots of governments play.

[Tamas]

Jobbik marched through Miskolc, probably the shittiest city in Hungary, due to it being full of dirt-poor gypos (and whites).

Gypsies and opposition activists did a small counter march. Photo gallery on the link:

http://hvg.hu/nagyitas/20121017_Jobbikosok_ciganyok_es_rendorok_az_Avason

[Martinus]

So is there anything to suggest that the situation in Hungary may be looking up or is it still on the downward spiral?

[Tamas]

heh, downward than ever.

They keep plugging the wholes on the budget by more and more taxes, instead of cutting spending.

Their ONLY, ONLY concern is winning the 2014 elections.

The latest effort on that, pre-registration... ridicoulous. One of the main arguments against it is of course that the state already has a complete list of citizens, their birth date, and their addresses, so there is no need WHATSOEVER to register.

Their latest reaction? "okay, then we disband the state registry. There you go"

Of course, the buearucratic labyrinth which made that registry necessary will remain. And all that data will also remain at various branches of the administration. It will be just slower and more cumbersome for one office to get the data.

And there are other examples like that. Like how the whole registration idea is unconstitutional, so they change the constitution. They change it every couple of months basically, and they propagated it as a long term foundation for our society.

In summary, they haphazardly tweak long term and crucial things, ENTIRELY based on their interest DURING THAT SINGLE DAY.

There are literally thousands of small companies declaring bankrupcy each quarter, breaking records every time. Recession for 2013 is just about assured.

And yet, YET, the only time they trigger loud opposition is when they try a vague affair at touching the welfare spending.

The country is trapped between an untalented maffia mob leadership and a socialist mob populace.

[The Brain]

Welcome to democracy.

[Tamas]

So has the flag-flying of Gordon Bajnai reached the Western press?

He was the "try and prevent a crash so we still get into Parlaiment in 2010 okthxbye" guy of the Socialists in 2009. Served as PM for a year, was in charge to enact some of the stuff the IMF requested for the bankrupcy-avoidance loan they gave us (funny fact: most of those reserves were spent by "we are freedom fighters and shall not yield to the IMF" Orban).
He was never a Socialist party member as far as I know but had functions in the government before his. A well-established businessman (and, well, you cannot be a well established businessman and not have some solid political connections in this country) and crisis-manager of companies, he was successful in indeed saving us from bankrupcy, with rather mild cuts. Altough to be fair, the structural problems he did not touch, those remained for Orban to keep ignoring them. But then again, he clearly stated that he was taking over for a single year to keep the country afloat, and that's what he did.

Politically, he appears to be a middle-left kind of guy, altough as with I guess most of Europe, economically liberal-minded public persons must masquerade as mild socialists to survive.

After his one year term, he moved away from politics. Needless to say, as fuckups upon fuckups piled up for the FIDESZ government, and their ridicoulous incompetence has become evident to everyone but the hardcore fanbase, the short reign of Bajnai started to look much better, and even some amount of idealization by the opposition was taking place.

He is the exact opposite of Orban: he is not a big speaker. In fact, yesterday was his first ever appearance in front of a big crowd. Silent, calm, moderate.

And that is the exact recipe how Medgyessy defeated Orban in 2002. Then he proceeded to actually keep his election promises and totally ruined the country, but that is beside the point.

Yesterday Bajnai appeared on the demonstration of a civil initative, Milla, and announced the creation of the Alliance for 2014. They await everybody, parties and individuals, who agree on a few bulletpoints (uhm, freedom, solidarity, progress and Europe IIRC). He made extra-sure to open for the moderates on the right (I am not sure they exist, they are more like moderate lefties with a slight nationalistic overtone), and also mentioning the "orphaned liberals"

All in all, I think he very well outlined the way to defeat FIDESZ: since FIDESZ revamped the election rules in every possible way short of cancelling them altogether to favour themselves, several opposition parties going against them is hopeless and pointless. The opposition must have a united front to even have the off chance of winning.
So I do support this.

However, first day reactions already showcase the problem: the Socialists, and the tincy-wincy party of former Socialist PM now anti-christ Gyurcsany, declared to be happy to join the alliance, while newcomer naive-leftie-hipster-clueless party LMP showed some sharp reluctance. And of course with THAT setup (old socialist fuckups only) the alliance is doomed. If this situation persists, they will have to change their opinion and form a party of their own.

[Tamas]

news snippets:


-an association of history teachers publshed a study about the new plans for history education, citing how topics like late 19th century issues caused by the high cencus for voting (only 6% of the population voted), massive poverty among landless peasants in the same era, are missing, also how the Horthy era is portrayed only by it's positive side.

-Since the 2008 highs, about  250 000 taxpayers have disappeared from the system, according to the latest statistics. I think a lot of these simply moved abroad.

-on the topic of just how big fuckups can work in politics, that Jobbik MP who was a lound anti-semite and preacher of global cionist conspiracies who discovered his Jewish ancestry, left Jobbik a couple of months ago (more like was thrown out), and now a loud supporter of Israel and Israel's example of peace 

[The Brain]

Never heard of Bajnai. Sounds like an IMF stooge bent on destroying Hungary IMHO.

[Tamas]

Oh, and this week's nationalization: weather reports.

Apparently it is not fair that the state-own meteorology service has to compete with private ones and that it has to sell services to gain income. So nobody will be allowed to sell their weather reports for money, and the state-owned business will receive more tax grants.

Yay!

[Tamas]

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!

[Syt]

Well, that's certainly an attractive way for some people to acquire EU citizenship.