Local government chaos to cover up a blundering budget
It's October 1st. It’s time to wake up Green Day and close the windows because mornings are chilly. My friends have started sharing recipes for fermented vegetables. It's also time for the new municipal governments in Hungary to form and start working.
Of course, they were elected back in June. Just as predictable as chilly mornings and people writing about indoor activities in the fall are the election reforms in Hungary. Viktor Orbán, our champion of democracy, reshapes electoral law before elections to ensure his continuing rule.
Since 1990, general elections have been held between April and May, with local elections in October of the same year. This schedule proved beneficial for Orbán’s party, Fidesz, in 2006 when they lost the general elections. However, Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány’s infamous leaked speech, in which he admitted to lying during the campaign, turned the tables for the local elections in the fall.
The Fidesz-led governments took out massive loans to provide a lifeline for the party. After the landslide victory in 2010, one of the first laws passed by the new Fidesz government was to take on the debt from the municipalities and forbid this type of financing in the future.
In 2014, the law was changed so that local governments are now elected for a five-year term. This change was motivated by the fact that Fidesz's propaganda operates in well-planned, long cycles, which usually culminate during the elections. The six months between elections are not sufficient to build up another peak performance. In other words, Fidesz is unlike Tadej Pogacar, who achieved top form three times this year to win the Giro d’Italia in the spring, the Tour de France in the summer, and the World Championships in September. Fidesz is more cautious and aims for only one Grand Tour per year.
In 2019, their fine-honed strategy was not enough. Although they retained control over most of the countryside, they lost some significant towns and, most importantly, Budapest. The opposition, which was usually ineffective, coordinated its efforts there. The higher proportion of better-educated voters also helped.
So, for 2024, they came up with something new again. The idea was to hold the EU Parliament elections and the local elections on the same day.
The two elections require entirely different strategies. In local elections, nationwide party conflicts are often overshadowed by local agreements, while in the EP election, it's a nationwide popularity contest where parties openly compete. Orbán’s election strategists speculated that the opposition parties would focus (and viciously fight) on the EP elections, making it difficult for them to make the necessary deals for local victories.
Péter Magyar and his Tisza Party disrupted this strategy. I have written about him many times (see links). Even though Fidesz emerged as the strongest party, they were unable to regain control of Budapest. They employed an interesting two-captain strategy, but their stronger candidate, Dávid Vitézy, lost by only a handful of votes. They also lost in some places where they had the local majority since 2006.
The previous municipal governments’ terms ended on September 30th, and despite being elected in June, the new ones were only able to take office today. These four months were marked by chaos and frantic political improvisation.
In Budapest, the assembly resembles a typical German state parliament but lacks the culture, know-how, and willingness to form viable coalitions. Péter Magyar's Tisza party could be the kingmaker, but the mayor, Gergely Karácsony, is a very astute operator.
The wider Budapest area, known as Pest County, is a separate entity. Fidesz couldn't secure a majority, so they had to seek assistance from the "independent" Putinist party Mi Hazánk (Our County).
The current mayor clashed with his predecessor in Győr, a major industrial city. The incumbent was a lousy mayor. The predecessor, Zsolt Borkai, was involved in a major sex scandal, the worst in recent Hungarian history. The new mayor is the third guy, an independent civilian, Bence Pintér. The Fidesz party has a majority among the aldermen and is now working to establish a "supervisory committee" to limit the powers of the independent mayor.
Orbán's party attempted to use the chaos to launch an attack against Péter Magyar, but Balázs Orbán's scandal disrupted their plans. However, the noise is loud enough to conceal the increasing deficit of the Hungarian budget, which is now some 90% higher than planned. This is business as usual: the more noise Fidesz makes, the bigger the problems in the background.
It's boring. I’ll try to write about something more interesting next time. Do you have an idea? A question, maybe? Please send it to me!
If I understand recent developments correctly, Magyar is declining an opportunity to hold some power in the Budapest assembly. This strikes me as potentially wise, and also revealing of his strategy.
He has seen that holding (or having held) some power makes you a very easy target for Fidesz. Since they control most of the media, they can attack with any nonsense (because no pushback), with the goal to just form some link between their attack target and the problems of voters. By declining power, Magyar keeps himself somewhat immune from this: he can't be the source of problems because he hasn't been in power.
The old political model, in democracies, was to gain prominence first by gaining a foothold in power, then using it effectively and growing from there. It strikes me that Magyar is doing something different: gaining prominence through online messaging, while remaining immune to criticisms of his past or present policy actions, because there are none. This may in turn allow voters to project onto him what they want to see when the next General Election comes around. In this light, declining the possibility of power in the Budapest assembly may be canny indeed.
Does that ring true to you? I am an outsider (I'm British) so I may be missing important aspects.
Mi Hazánk is usually translated as Our Homeland (Movement)
(I don't like them at all but an international audience understands it better if there's only one translation)