2014-09-28

Hungary: The West's Mirror

Media coverage on Hungary is close to useless. Since Hungary's Fidesz-led government is decidedly nationalist and right-wing, it is the enemy of the EU and the elites of Europe. The opposition to the ruling party comes from the actual far right in the form of the Jobbik party, which is not playing the obscure bogeyman role it fulfills in most countries, but is actually on the verge of becoming the second largest party. Hungary's political center has shifted greatly to the right and it may be semi-permanent in the short-term and even permanent in the long-term if a major cyclical shift in politics is underway. Certainly, Fidesz is capturing the move towards identity and community as described by Mr. Farage in the UK, himself a bogeyman to many on the left despite his decidedly liberal opinions.

Here's the latest coverage of the country as the government looks set to score major wins in local elections. The Economist writes: Orban the Unstoppable
Next month’s local elections will consolidate Mr Orban’s grip on power. The once mighty left has splintered into three parties, none of which poses a serious challenge to his ruling right-wing Fidesz party. Instead, disillusioned Fidesz supporters are moving farther right. Polls show Jobbik, a nationalist party, neck-and-neck with the Socialists.

What is Fidesz doing to earn themselves the ire of the West?
Mr Orban swept to power with a two-thirds majority in April 2010, a feat repeated four years later, in part thanks to Fidesz-friendly adjustments of campaign rules and biased media coverage, according to the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).
So Mr. Orban is like Barack Obama.
Mr Orban’s centralisation of power has drawn protests from the European Union, America’s State Department and human-rights groups. Corruption has worsened, says Transparency International, a watchdog. More than a third of the population live at or below the poverty line.
So Mr. Orban is like Barack Obama.
The situation of the Roma, the largest minority in the country, remains as parlous as ever. In Miskolc a slum-clearance programme has made many homeless.
All over the world there are sympathetic minorities persecuted by governments; the Roma are probably the least sympathetic for a number of reasons. Orban's Roma-related policies would probably win solid majorities in Italy and other European countries.
Mr Orban outlined his longer-term vision in a much-noted speech on July 26th in Baile Tusnade, in neighbouring Romania. Hungary, he explained, would become an “illiberal state”. Speaking admiringly of Russia, China and Turkey, he said Hungary would remain a democracy, and not reject liberal principles such as freedom of speech, but would be based on “a different, special, national approach”. The approach, say critics, was evident earlier this month when police raided the Budapest office of Okotars, an NGO that manages funds from Norway, Iceland and Lichtenstein, and confiscated computers and documents for alleged financial mismanagement. Okotars strongly denies the charge. The police raid was “completely unacceptable”, thundered Vidar Helgesen, Norway’s minister for Europe.
NGOs are a tool used by intelligence agencies to push political agendas across national borders. Putin in Russia kicked out NGOs, China bans them, and now Hungary moved against one. What is Okotars? The Hungarian Environmental Partnership Foundation. Does Okotars represent the views of the Hungarian people or the views of its paymasters in Norway and Iceland?

Police raid Okotars premises
The opposition E-PM party said the raid was part of a politically motivated procedure and accused the government of “Putinist methods” and trying to intimidate civil organisations, which “defend what is left of Hungarian democracy”.

The leftist Democratic Coalition (DK) called on the government to stop its “attacks” on the civil society. Csaba Molnar, managing deputy head of the party, referred to “intimidation by police” and called it unacceptable that the government should “send riot police against a civil group which performs social functions the government is not capable of”.

According to the Socialist Party, the police did not have the legal grounds to occupy the foundation’s headquarters. Gergely Barandy, Socialist deputy chair of parliament’s legislative committee, said that Monday’s crackdown, which he said was evocative of a police state, could “terrify the entire civil sector”. Prime Minister Viktor Orban must not “consider Putin’s illiberal autocracy as an example”.
The battle against NGOs is a major fault-line in the right-left battle. Nationalists favor the policies of the nation, the native people and their national government. Socialists are internationalists who do not believe in national governments. They carry out political operations across political borders through organizations such as NGOs.

Should foreign governments be able to fund political organizations and support their own political agendas? Or should politics be the province of the nation?

Back to the Economist article:
Whereas most EU leaders have scaled down their criticism of Mr Orban’s illiberal ways, the Americans are stepping theirs up. Bill Clinton, a former American president, told a talk-show host on the Daily Show, a current-affairs programme, that Mr Orban was an admirer of “authoritarian capitalism” and never wanted to leave power. “Usually those guys just want to stay forever and make money,” Mr Clinton added.
So Orban is like Bill Clinton.
A few days later, Barack Obama, America’s president, took Hungary to task in a speech at the Clinton foundation, noting that “from Hungary to Egypt, endless regulations and overt intimidation increasingly target civil society”.
So Mr. Orban is like Barack Obama. (President Obama used the IRS, America's revenue department, to harass political opponents.)

Previous coverage:
Right ascendant in Hungary
Unelected European Commission tells elected Hungarian government to change policy
Hungary developments; rise of the right?

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