{"id":27297,"date":"2018-04-16T17:40:40","date_gmt":"2018-04-16T15:40:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/libmod.de\/?p=27297"},"modified":"2020-03-28T02:46:52","modified_gmt":"2020-03-28T01:46:52","slug":"after-the-elections-hungary-divided","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/libmod.de\/en\/after-the-elections-hungary-divided\/","title":{"rendered":"After the Elections: Hungary Divided"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Foto: Janossy Gergely\/\u200bShutterstock<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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The elections on April 8, 2018 gave Viktor Orb\u00e1n\u2019s Fidesz <\/em>party another two-thirds majority in parliament. Attila Juhasz explains why this does not imply a broad support for the concept of \u2018illib\u00aderale democracy\u2019. The hungarian society is deeply devided and Orb\u00e1n knows how to use it for his purposes.<\/h2>\n

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The way mandates won in the April 8 general election are distributed among political parties in Hungary suggest there is widespread political unity in the country. The governing Fidesz gained a two-thirds majority in the National Assembly with a voter turnout of over 70%, winning 91 single-member constituencies and 49% of votes on party lists. Moreover, the governing party \u2013 according to the incom\u00adplete data known at the time of this writing \u2013 collected 364 203 new votes compared to 2014.<\/p>\n

Maybe not even Fidesz foresaw this kind of expansion because polling organ\u00adi\u00adsa\u00adtions measured Fidesz to be more popular than it actually was in the run-up to the previous four elections. Thus, it was expected once again that uncertain voters would strengthen the opposition. This is the reason why it was supposed that a higher voter turnout would favour the opposition as well as the fact that the experi\u00adences of by-elections also pointed to that direction. However, this is the opposite of what went down in the general election: the relatively high voter turnout only benefited the opposition in the capital, while in the countryside and especially in small settle\u00adments Fidesz profited from it. Finally, Jobbik mostly managed to keep its popularity on 2014 levels, and only managed to win one single-member constituency (Duna\u00fajv\u00e1ros), vastly under\u00adper\u00adforming its own expectations.<\/p>\n

Centre-left parties only reshuffled their votes among each other: in 2014, the lists of MSZP-DK-Egy\u00fctt-PM-MLP and LMP altogether received 1 558 151 votes, while in 2018 the lists of MSZP-P\u00e1rbesz\u00e9d, DK, Egy\u00fctt, LMP, Momentum and MKKP gained 1 583 440 according to currently available data. The main achievement of the fragmented left-wing opposition is that they could beat Fidesz in Budapest. Compared to 2014, the opposition won four more mandates in the capital\u2019s single-member constituencies, 12 out of 18. Moreover, they could have won 5 of the remaining 6 constituencies in the capital if there was wider cooper\u00adation there. Jobbik would only have been needed to be included in the cooper\u00adation in Budapest\u2019s 6th<\/sup> single-member constituency. These results are a good indication that the Budapest-countryside division in Hungary is deeper than ever. Only one left-wing candi\u00addates could win a single-member constituency outside of the capital, the socialist candidate was re-elected in Szeged, and independent candidate Tam\u00e1s Mell\u00e1r won a mandate in P\u00e9cs.<\/p>\n

Looking at terri\u00adtorial data, it can be observed that the governing party can largely thank its consid\u00aderable victory to the party\u2019s outstanding popularity in villages (58%). Jobbik also has a presence in small settle\u00adments, but left-wing parties barely have any support on this level. In cities and larger towns with county rights the distri\u00adb\u00adution of votes is more balanced, but even here only Fidesz and Jobbik could gain strength, while the left lost votes here as well. Thus, the end result is that Budapest has become an island for left-wing opposition parties within the country, where Fidesz became signif\u00adi\u00adcantly weaker and Jobbik could not become a relevant actor in the capital regardless of its moder\u00adation strategy.<\/p>\n

Data also reveals that the more under\u00adde\u00adveloped and the poorer a settlement is, the better Fidesz\u2019s results are. The reason for this is rarely the generous social policies and effective devel\u00adopment policies of Fidesz. The strong effect of the government\u2019s campaign focusing on nothing but the migration threat, the restriction of the public domain in the countryside to the government\u2019s propa\u00adganda, votes becoming control\u00adlable due to locals\u2019 depen\u00addence on the government and the fact that the governing parties have a more visible organ\u00adi\u00adsa\u00adtional presence in small settle\u00adments are more likely suspects. Additionally, there are elements of the government\u2019s politics that enjoy real support in villages, for example the Public Works Scheme and law and order policies. In contrast, Jobbik is not compet\u00aditive enough in villages; the old organ\u00adi\u00adsa\u00adtions of the left-wing opposition do not exist anymore and new parties\u2019 local organ\u00adi\u00adsa\u00adtions do not exist yet.<\/p>\n

The political divisions visible in terri\u00adtorial-level data are also tangible from a socio\u00adlogical point of view. The election result confirmed what public opinion polls had already indicated earlier. The compo\u00adsition of the governing party\u2019s electorate has practi\u00adcally been reshuffled: the share of bourgeois, educated voters, those from higher social strata, and Hungarians living in the capital has fallen among Fidesz voters, while the number of Fidesz supporters from villages and small towns, people from lower social strata has increased consid\u00aderably. Fidesz supporters are getting older and older, only the supporters of the fatefully aging MSZP are older than them. At the same time, the youth \u2013 which is more active than it used to be \u2013 now mainly support relatively new parties such as Jobbik, LMP and Momentum, and Fidesz is also incapable of reaching them. It is also a charac\u00adter\u00adistic change that wherever education-related indicators are the most favourable Fidesz lost votes, while the party made huge gains among the unedu\u00adcated population.<\/p>\n

After the general election, Fidesz\u2019s advantage over the fragmented opposition is unques\u00adtionable, and the government\u2019s legit\u00adimacy and stability cannot be doubted either. Never\u00adtheless, Hungarian society is rarely expected to return to tranquillity. Domestic votes counted so far reveal that around 2.5 million votes were cast on Fidesz and slightly more were cast on all opposition parties altogether. Due to the electoral system, the governing party received two-thirds of mandates in the National Assembly, which is in itself hard to accept for those who voted against the Orb\u00e1n-government and were in the majority if we only look at what the raw numbers show. Moreover, election data mirror the multiple divisions in Hungarian society. There is a deep division between the capital and the countryside, the old and the young as well as between those living in developed and undeveloped terri\u00adtories. Political identities diverging in all possible aspects and parallel realities have developed, and there is basically no transit between these two.<\/p>\n

For the majority of the governing party\u2019s voters, Viktor Orb\u00e1n and his party are the sole repre\u00adsen\u00adta\u00adtives of the nation. For them \u2013 not indepen\u00addently of Orb\u00e1n\u2019s post-2002 politics based on this message \u2013 whoever criti\u00adcises the governing party is a traitor, pro-immigration foreign agent, but at least a bad Hungarian. In this environment, Fidesz generated a mood where in some campaign events the supporters of the governing party even demand the execution of some opposition figures. In contrast, there is no unified political identity on the opposition\u2019s side, but the prime minister and his closest circle is viewed as a corrupt organised crime group by all members of it. The government\u2019s ever-inten\u00adsi\u00adfying, almost absurd anti-immigration campaign based on fear has created a fake reality for the supporters of the government which basically excludes any other problems from the public domain, and many in the ranks of the opposition are incapable of accepting and under\u00adstanding these fears. Partly as a conse\u00adquence of this incapa\u00adbility, disdainful refer\u00adences to governing party voters as \u201ccountryside people\u201d have surfaced after the election, and thousands of voters casting their ballots against Fidesz are thinking about emigrating from the country. Griev\u00adances are so deep and unrec\u00adon\u00adcilable that currently it is almost unimag\u00adinable that the two conflicting sides would accept each other. However, on the party political scene Fidesz\u2019s interest is maintaining this division because as long as the governing party is unified and the opposition is fragmented, society\u2019s disunity is going to keep the Orb\u00e1n regime in power. In fact, the constant display of enemy images is the only thing that can keep the governing party\u2019s supporters in one camp.<\/p>\n

Conse\u00adquently, the next Orb\u00e1n-government\u2019s politics is not going to change in a meaningful way regardless of the fact that many expect the regime would turn towards consol\u00adi\u00addation. The high voter turnout and the secure majority in the National Assembly provides the necessary legit\u00adimacy to the government to complete the illiberal political system it has built over the past eight years and allow for even more repressive power politics. The government is going to further restrict the space for critical media and NGOs. Therefore, oppor\u00adtu\u00adnities for creating political alter\u00adna\u00adtives will also be restricted.<\/p>\n

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