Chapter 24
(Un)constitutional Anarchy
Those days I wrote about above were the last days of a system people call usually constitutional democracy. The leader of the opposition had taken it to heart when he had lost the election four years earlier. As I mentioned at that time he had said that he had been to continue his fight in the street. He had made a lot of tours in the country and had been making speeches as if he would have been a member of the family Graham. I called him then Vicky Graham or the Preacher. However, as time went on he had become more radical and also his group of supporters (I named them already the CC of Fidesz) helped him to build up an organization that was not unlike Camorra or Cosa Nostra. Lately I began to call him the Godfather.
After the October 2006 events a de facto civil war began. Within the country there was a state within a state that didn’t accept the elected legitimate government – the opposition party’s core, consisting of the party officials, its elected members of the parliament and its elected local government officials – and behaved as if the government had had no right to pass laws, launch reforms, etc. The MPs wouldn’t take part in the work of parliament, or if would, only did so to block work in those parliamentary committees where they had the chairmanship. Their leader was generally absent in the parliament, he was doing something either in Brussels or in other EU forums. In one case, when he was at home and present in the house, and the prime minister began to address the house, he signalled all his MPs to do as agreed and they all marched out of the floor. From that time on, they were always going out when the premier began his address.
During that three years until his resignation that cabinet could not accomplish anything. I see the root of this fiasco in three facts. The most important was the determination of the opposition to block everything the government initiated. It is a very old opposition tactics, it is called obstruction. But in this case I rather call it sabotage. Their most important means were forcing the cabinet to do appearance activity, sending the passed laws to the constitutional court and starting a referendum. Appearance activity was when they demanded in several thousand questions what the government did with what and when. The cabinet had to deal with it and could not do its real tasks. The constitutional court is a double edged weapon, but about it later. And there always were crowds in all subways where people were collecting signatures to bring hare-brained questions on to referendum.
The second one was the bad air between the liberals and the prime minister. In the new cabinet, although it looked as if nothing had changed from the previous one before the new elections, liberals got only ministries where the premier thought they could not cause big problems. But he was mistaken. One of them was the ministry of health. For about fifteen years everyone in the country has known that health in the country badly wanted reform. Even the election promises of the opposition included them. But as soon as they lost the election, reforms were not necessary in their opinion. The liberals really did a good job when they elaborated the roadmap of the reform in health institutions. It began to evolve, privatization of services – not institutions – started, financial means were on the way to be granted. But as I said the opposition also did its work. The local governments in their hands blocked the activities of private medical firms, and at last they could not do their job because of lack of incomes and employees. The referendum that the opposition forced on the government, decided against. In such a situation the premier could not give his name to this kind of reform and changed the person of the minister. It was the trigger to the fall-apart of the coalition. The liberals announced they left it.
It looked that all was up and the cabinet would resign. It was almost halfway in the cycle and the re-shaping of cabinet was only possible by socialist ministers alone. The cabinet would be a minority one, and, although everyone thought the liberals would vote as before in favour of it, there was no guarantee. The opposition leader was sure that his time arrived. If I look back, I think – and I am sure even the then prime minister thinks so now – the right thing would have been to announce new elections. The opposition was in mastery of the situation, but its support wasn’t so high as it was to become if it was going on.
Here comes the third factor of the fiasco. After the second election victory of the socialist party several such people took heart for stepping on to the stage of politics that weren’t useful for the country – and neither the party –, rather the opposite. The governing party would have to be more strict in not to let his honour destroy by such empty and greedy people in its rows. In all fields (local government in a district in the capital, direct environment of the mayor in the capital, different parliamentary committees, etc.) greed was conquering ever larger scope. When one or two of them made mistakes and their crimes surfaced the party let them take their responsibility, but investigation of greed would have to be much more consequent. Voters judged the party by those mistakes too.
Maybe the most important was the office of the mayor in the capital. That man was first elected in the year of the first so called free elections, in 1990. As I mentioned, liberals were the second great power in this country then. That man remained four years later, because then a socialist-liberal coalition took the parliament and the same happened in the capital’s local government. Again it came the same when parliament was in the opposite hands. His fourth term came when the leftist coalition took back parliament. And in 2006 again. But then some of the bad boys took heart and they were in the direct office of the mayor. They discovered that public works, especially transport that cannot be let down, are gold mines. Their influence on the managements of those state companies was enormous and they stuffed their pockets. The most regrettable thing is that their gain could have been counted in million of forint, but the damage they caused in thousand millions. The difference was disappearing in the air.
The opposition didn’t stop short of fiction, they found new cases ever again. They spread rumour about even the prime minister and minister of finance, as well as the new independent manager of the state bank named by this cabinet. There were issues of offshore business – if Cyprus is offshore instead of an EU member state – and real estate switch at one of the recreation areas, but also it was a great sin of the premier that his wife was the grandchild of a party official during the initial era of the former system. I tried to give a complete account, but I think I didn’t succeeded. However, even so you can feel the stress on that man. Also, and it was a great mistake as I tried to refer to it already, the he was also the party chief at the same time. Anyway, there came the moment when he – or simply his organism – said enough. He resigned as prime minister and in a couple of days also as party chief. The latter thing he announced on the party congress where officials were to be elected.
Up to that time the support of the socialists fell sharply. The main opposition party gained from this change as well as from the quick downturn of the two smaller parties, the forum and the liberals. It seemed, if someone shifted party it was always for the main opposition one. In that situation even the most widely watched commercial TV channel’s poll showed that people expect new elections. They didn’t guess rightly what would come as the governing party formed a new minority cabinet – a so called professional one – selecting persons who were not politicians, but successful businessmen in their own field. I think, not necessary to mention that the denigration campaign started again, however this time everyone was very careful not to take on any assignment, when he or she was not white. This new cabinet was formed and it began to work. Perspectives were mixed up very much, but it tried to do everything in a way, so as not to enable comrade Punch (I called our new head of state so, because he behaved like a clown and was a comrade as all of his achievements came from the ‘pestilent’ era) to have any voice in anything, as he had produced enough refuse as a constitutional judge, there was no need for him to croak (his voice resembled that of a frog in the marsh) into things that were not his matter at all.
It had extremely hard tasks, but in that one year it had it did a fine work. Even the opposition wasn’t very active, but it could also be the case that its leader knew he won and wanted to make his victory as complete as possible. At the same time he didn’t take any risks. He held the clique surrounding him in his hand firmly. For that the best proof is the latest election of officials in his party. He was the sole candidate for the place of chairman, the one nominated beside him stepped back.