Chapter 22
(A)politics
In one of the previous chapters I tried to give account of the political events in the country following the parliamentary elections in 2002. During that four years the great opportunities that had been painted in so bright colours almost all melted away. From the part of the governing coalition it was lack of discipline, infighting – almost anarchy – in the smaller party and lack of vigour against greed. These factors in themselves could have caused a lot of problems, but it had not been all. Those four years had been enough for the biggest – better to say almost only – party of the opposition to reach such an extent of organization that had ever been surpassed only by the national socialist party in Germany in the thirties and lately by the two underground organizations in Italy. The successes of their attempts in crippling the reforms of the government had grown continually.
Even there was a change of relationship between the two parties of the governing coalition. It is worth to see how it developed in the previous years. The smaller party, the liberal democrats, was one of the two parties fighting for power at the first elections after the change of power, in 1990. At last the other one was able to win (the forum of Hungarian democrats). Four years later the forum lost the majority of its voters, mainly to the young democrats (Fidesz in Hungarian abbreviation), and the socialists, who gained back their voters, were running abreast with liberal democrats and young democrats. Socialists won and, as the second runner, Fidesz, was already becoming very anti-communist – at least in slogans, as almost all of them got their diplomas in the so called ‘pestilent’ era – and didn’t want to form a government with them, there formed a governing coalition of socialists and liberals.
During the first leftist cabinet their relationship remained reliable (well, ‘A fish rots from the head down’ as the proverb says, at that time both parties had reliable heads). In the next four years it remained more or less so, as they were in opposition. However, in 2002 the old leader left the liberals and socialists also changed their leadership. For the socialists it was beneficial, but among liberals a power struggle began. During the years until the elected premier ruled there was no problem, there was a peaceful coexistence between the two parties, or, better to say, the two factions of parliament. With the change of the prime minister problems arose. The new one wasn’t so patient when he saw something not in accordance with the decisions of the cabinet. Two ministries were changed from liberal to socialist and the replacements were rather unimportant. Tensions became more acute.
The trouble came when the term of the head of state expired. According to the coalition agreement it was the right of the socialist party to nominate the new head of state. They did it, and the coalition partner said “no”. Why? Just so, no. The candidate didn’t deserve this mistreatment. She was the chairman of the parliament, in my opinion the most honest Hungarian politician living at present. Without the consent of the liberals it was impossible to elect her and at last a former member of the constitutional court was named and elected. The worst choice ever, as it was to be made clear by his aloof manner. Even he didn’t wait too long to lay bare his fangs. There came a national holiday when awards were being presented, the prime minister as usual made his propositions, but the president wouldn’t shake hands with one of the honoured. Well, this bad hit of the liberals would not be to forget by either side. The socialists as the injured partner and the liberals as those who did something wrong for no avail.
The prime minister that took the place of his predecessor after his resignation didn’t see it clearly yet, even for two years in that office already, how enormous his challenge was and how futile it was to fight for election victory with such an imperfect background – his party had little more than thirty percent of the voters’ support, together with the untrustworthy coalition partner it was barely enough for a simple majority in the parliament, no hope of passing any law requiring a two-thirds majority – when all his election promises would ‘ab ovo’ be considered lies as he would not be able to fulfil them. He must have seen that the only reasonable solution would have been a great coalition as it was done in Germany a year earlier.
At that time a great coalition would still be a feasible solution, as also the opposition had similar support indices, and, if approached with good intentions, they would have chosen the alternative that would have been better for the country. From the part of the governing party you could even see such attempts, for example the then and would-be prime minister was always stressing that all of the Hungarian politicians were good patriots, who had good intentions to the citizens of the country – I don’t think he was so naïve really. The problem was that the head of the opposition had already been extremely frustrated, as he lost the elections four years earlier and, although he did all to make work for the government impossible, the country was progressing – albeit at a snail’s pace.
As soon as his election loss had been clear he made a speech for his party – actually for the close group of self-named activists having the membership in their grip – where he expressed his intentions not to accept the loss of power and to take people to the street to prevent the government to ‘exercise terror on people’. And as soon as it was possible for him (it took about a year to reorganize their rows completely) he did it always. I mentioned the pretended referendum about giving Hungarian citizenship to all people in Trianon countries of Hungarian nationality. But it was not the only attempt to whip up emotions unnecessarily in the surrounding countries, where even mentioning such ideas attuned a lot of locals against our compatriots living there.
All the same, his arrangements were not enough to acquire the necessary support for him among voters for the victory, it was enough only to block those people who were leaning to a nationwide coalition or a great coalition. I am not dead sure that he was betting on victory, he is too shrewd to be so. He also knew that a marginal victory would mean a backwater for him too, I can even imagine that that organizational genius wanted to lose elections and step-by-step drive the new government into an impossible situation, when it would be forced to resign, and for this reason its chances at the next elections would be very low. Maybe, he thought, he would win with a margin too small for good governing, and in that case he was to delegate premiership to his deputy (minister of health in his former cabinet), would not bother with this ‘hick country’, but instead he would go to the European battleground and try to win the chairmanship of the European People’s Party.
During the final days of campaign there were some debates on TV between party chairmen. The most enjoyable was between the premier and the opposition leader. During this discussion the latter was rammed into the soil by the premier. It is my opinion that his election was lost in that year because of this debate. Every arguments of him were refuted and spectators of the debate could be convinced that the other side was worth voting for.
Alas, it was too beautiful to be true. The country was manageable, but in no good shape. It was all the same who was to win, it would be necessary for the new cabinet to take hard decisions, for the new parliament to pass austerity regulations and laws to reduce budget deficit, incentives to invigorate the economy, especially foreign direct investment. All these new laws would have to be passed on consensus and a definite will to improve the state of the economic and general situation. It was a pipe dream. In the harsh atmosphere neither of the two biggest parties was prone to submit its own petty interests for the well being of the whole population. All the same, who would win, what would follow would be skirmish all the time.
And it came out as it was to be expected. Because the big opposition party alienated all others on the right that could have been its ally, there was no possibility for the usual cheating game during the second round. It was decided already in the first one that the governing coalition would go on and form the new cabinet. It was followed by a blank unbroken silence. No oaths, no big meetings. But the volcano was already on the brink of eruption.
The head of the state handed – albeit reluctantly – the right to form the new government to the socialist candidate for prime minister. In about six week as usual its list was announced. But the program of action had already been decided as I mentioned above, and it had to be announced as soon as possible. At that time the socialist party head was the same as the prime minister, an issue much discussed everywhere, but not decided yet, if it is right or wrong. The head called a two-day plenary session for the party officials and elected members of parliament from that party. Venue of this event was the former state-party recreation centre, still in the hands of the successor party, in Oszod near the lake Balaton.
During the session he informed them that it had been a great lie his party spread in the course of the election campaign: there would be no possibility to bring Paradise down to earth, on the opposite, they were to announce austerity regulations immediately. He told them very clearly that they had been lying during day and night. It was necessary to tell them so as not leave these people of importance in ignorance. But he made two great mistakes. One of them was that he used four letter words not presentable in business or politics. But the other mistake was even bigger: he didn’t make it sure that confidential issues as those wouldn’t leak. It needed only a couple of days for the former state-party organ daily to get a copy of the recorded speech and to leak it first in the paper, then in commercial radio stations. About two days later you could hear it even in the state TV during the evening news.
It had a fatal impact on that government’s present and future. But let’s put this question aside for a while and let’s investigate how it could happen. It goes without saying that the party itself didn’t make it public. It happened more than four years ago and some pharisaic people responsible for the finding out of the facts still dare say that ‘it is impossible to find the person who stole the record of the speech’. I think you don’t have to be a M. Poirot – who often said with Agatha Christy ‘how big dullard I was not to see facts clearly’ – to find the most likely solution: the little boy of daddy (the first supporting the young democrats and the latter the socialists), or vice versa, took out the Dictaphone from the drawer and made a copy of it, then sent it to the most proper group to leak it. It could have any of the approximately two hundred persons present at the meeting that let it happen. This is why I mentioned it earlier: the premier didn’t make it sure that those issues wouldn’t leak. In better organized countries – don’t think about the USA or Russia, only Germany or France – the responsible person would have been placed in the appropriate place, jail.