Inside the Hungarian campaign to beat Viktor
Orbán
Disparate alliance faces formidable obstacles to
unseat veteran PM.
BY LILI
BAYER
July 26,
2021 4:00 am
BUDAPEST —
For Hungary’s opposition, next year’s election is literally make-or-break.
Polls
suggest a disparate alliance of six parties has a real shot at ending the rule
of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, the champion of “illiberal democracy,” who has
been in power since 2010.
But the
highly diverse nature of the alliance — from liberal millennials to small-town
conservatives — is a double-edged sword.
When it
comes to electoral math, only a broad opposition bloc can appeal to enough
voters to take on Orbán. But having such a broad coalition means tensions and
rivalries are never far from the surface.
The
parliamentary election, expected next spring, is high-stakes for Europe as well
as Hungary.
If Orbán
wins another term, the highly strained relationship between Budapest and the EU
mainstream will be tested even further. Orbán has already parted ways with the
European People’s Party center-right alliance. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte
even suggested last month that it might be time for Hungary to leave the EU
itself.
A defeat
for Orbán and his nationalist Fidesz party would present the possibility of a
reset in relations with the EU — although how that would unfold is highly
uncertain, given the wide range of views within the opposition alliance.
“The
anti-Orbán opposition in Hungary is a product of despair,” said philosopher
Gáspár M. Tamás, a Communist-era dissident who later served as a member of
Hungary’s parliament.
“From
‘woke’ identity politics to sexist, racist, deeply reactionary talk, everything
can be found within this opposition,” Tamás said.
Previous
failures to beat Orbán drove the six parties to take the unprecedented step of
joining forces in late 2020. They are expected to nominate a joint candidate
for prime minister in a two-round primary election this fall.
In
interviews with POLITICO, all six politicians in the running for the nomination
voiced confidence that it is possible to win. But many also spoke of the huge
internal and external challenges they face to defeat Orbán, one of Europe’s
longest-serving prime ministers who has built a reputation as a ruthless
political operator in more than three decades in politics.
Internally,
the inclusion of a party with far-right and anti-Semitic baggage in the
coalition poses an awkward challenge for more liberal groups. Divisions over
Hungary’s controversial anti-LGBTQ+ law have surfaced lately. And primary races
to select joint candidates in electoral districts are fuelling competition
among the opposition parties.
Externally,
the challenges include attacks from the government’s propaganda machine and
obstacles to getting the opposition message across against the power of the
Fidesz-backed media. Earlier this month, an international consortium of media
outlets and NGOs reported spyware has been used to target the mobile phones of
government critics.
High hopes
Opposition
leaders are pinning their hopes on voters being concerned above all about the
state of democracy in Hungary, which has been accused by EU institutions of
putting the bloc’s core values at risk.
A type of
opposition voter has emerged “for whom it is not important if right-wing or
left-wing, it is not important if liberal or social democrat, but it is
important to be a democrat,” said Klára Dobrev, a vice president of the
European Parliament and the left-liberal Democratic Coalition’s candidate for
prime minister.
The
anti-Orbán camp also hopes to capitalize on growing frustration with corruption
and economic problems to mobilize voters.
“We believe
in equal chance for everyone — meritocracy — instead of kissing the hand of the
politicians and Viktor Orbán in order to have success in business or in
politics,” said András Fekete-Győr, another candidate for prime minister who
leads the centrist Momentum party. “People are tired of this system.”
Those
messages may be getting through.
Some 37
percent of Hungarians support the opposition list, while 36 percent back
Fidesz, according to a recent poll by the IDEA Institute.
Among those
Hungarians who say they would go to vote for sure, however, Fidesz has a slight
edge, with 47 percent, compared to 45 percent for the opposition.
That’s a
reminder for opposition strategists that one of their main challenges on
election day will be to motivate citizens unhappy with Orbán to actually come
out to the polls.
In 2018,
nearly half of Hungarians voted for the Fidesz-led list, which won more than
double the score of the second-placed party.
Now, the
apparently close race has led some opposition leaders to argue the alliance
needs an even broader voter base to secure victory.
“My goal is
not just maintaining or mobilizing the opposition voters, but that I expand
this camp, because I think the change in government will depend on this,” said
Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony, an environment-friendly politician who has
sought to brand himself as a bridge-builder and is the frontrunner to become
the opposition’s prime-minister candidate.
Ground game
Much will
depend on races in the country’s 106 electoral districts — where the opposition
hopes to run joint candidates — and how many currently undecided voters will
ultimately show up to vote against Orbán.
The
alliance has a chance of winning “if the parties are able to give up their
internal rivalries and try to really put forward the best, more suitable
candidates in the individual electoral districts,” said József Pálinkás, a former
Fidesz minister who is also in the running be the opposition’s nominee for PM.
Another
challenge is the role of the right-wing Jobbik party, which has in recent years
sought to shed its anti-Semitic and anti-Roma past and is now part of the
opposition coalition.
Asked about
concerns from Hungary’s Roma and Jewish communities, Jobbik leader Péter Jakab
— another opposition candidate for prime minister — said, “if they were scared
of the old Jobbik then, now they should be scared of the current Fidesz.”
Jakab,
whose grandmother had Jewish origins, accused the ruling party of employing
anti-Semitic messaging against him.
But
ideological divisions within the opposition recently returned to the fore when
Jobbik joined Fidesz in voting in favor of legislation supposedly aimed at
combating pedophilia, which included a ban on the promotion or portrayal of
homosexuality to minors.
“Even if we
can save the life of one child from a sexual criminal, then this law was worth
it,” Jakab said in defense of his party’s stance. However, he criticized some
elements of the new measures and said he would support amending the legislation
if the opposition wins the next election. Homosexuality “must be accepted and
tolerated,” Jakab added.
Fidesz
fights
Outwardly,
Fidesz is projecting confidence, insisting the opposition’s campaign is of
little concern.
“The
situation is totally like in football,” said Tamás Deutsch, a Fidesz MEP and
one of the party’s founders. “Naturally before every match, the teams analyze
the adversary’s game, preparing for it. But the adversary’s tactical order at
the end is uninteresting, the key for victory is always the team’s own game.”
But the
Fidesz machine is working hard to thwart the opposition at this early stage of
the campaign.
Streets are
plastered with taxpayer-funded billboards carrying the government’s talking
points. Voters are getting letters from Orbán in the mail, while state media
outlets repeat conspiracy theories promoted by the ruling party. In addition,
the prime minister last week called for a referendum on LGBTQ+ issues —
expected in the months before the election — with questions the government’s
opponents have criticised as stigmatizing and misleading.
Pro-government
outlets appear intent on discrediting the alliance’s most popular figures, in
particular Karácsony and Jakab.
They have
published frequent articles criticizing Karácsony’s track record as the capital
city’s mayor and also portray the opposition alliance as a project of former
Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány, Dobrev’s husband and the current leader of the
Democratic Coalition, who is widely disliked among right-wing Hungarians.
Meanwhile,
opposition politicians say they cannot get their ideas through in a significant
portion of the media and often can’t even purchase advertising space.
“It doesn’t
matter how much you pay, you just don’t get a billboard advertisement,” said Péter
Márki-Zay, the conservative mayor of the southern city of Hódmezővásárhely and
another candidate to be the opposition’s choice for prime minister.
The
opposition alliance has been relying heavily on social media and street
campaigning to get around such obstacles and reach voters.
Even if the
opposition manages to overcome obstacles clinch the election, it could still
face significant challenges to governing effectively.
As part of
his political strategy, Orbán has installed allies in key positions in the
state apparatus for unusually long terms. A two-thirds majority in parliament
would be required to overturn many of his reforms. The government has also
worked to move control of state assets into the hands of its allies in recent
months.
Any
potential anti-Orbán government would face Fidesz-friendly faces at the helm of
institutions from the public prosecutor’s office to the media council.
There are
“many points in the Hungarian constitutional arrangements whose aim is that, if
there is a government that is not Fidesz, it will not be able to govern,” said
the Democratic Coalition’s Dobrev.
The
opposition alliance has issued a joint document vowing to seek a wide-ranging
societal consultation on a new constitution, if it wins.
“We need to
create a pluralistic, diverse constitution that reflects and declares our basic
values,” the parties wrote.
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