Being half-Magyar is a badge I’ve generally worn with pride. Hungarians bravely tried to rise up against the totalitarian regime in ’56 only to be brutally suppressed. Whilst the Solidarity movement in Poland did most of the heavy lifting that led, after a decade long struggle, to the fall of the Berlin Wall it was Hungary that played the final trump card by opening its border with Austria in May '89. The Soviet Union’s satellite states had been provided with a corridor to the West, the Iron Curtain had been irrevocably pierced and within months the Wall came down and the Eastern Bloc ceased to be.
There are narcissistic affiliations too. The expression that a ‘Hungarian who enters a revolving door behind you always exits first’ is a flattering one!
In the mid 90’s Hungary seemed so grown up politically, swapping governments between Neo Liberals and former Communists with ease and with all embarking on a similar reformist trajectory. It was a source of pride that a Country so nascent in its democratic transition could enact the necessary market reforms, regardless of the label or past of whichever party was in power at the time.
All this has changed with the ascent of Viktor Orban and his Fidesz party. The comparisons between Orban and Russia’s Putin abound in the press. The genesis of each, at least in terms of foreign perception, is uncannily similar. This is not to suggest that Orban had a secret services background; quite the opposite - he was a visceral anti-communist but the warning bells have been ringing for many years now. There has been a long forewarning of Orban’s nationalist and authoritarian tendencies, along with rebuttals that he’s just a decent guy trying to get the country on track, all so similar to how earlier fears about Putin were so plausibly, and disingenuously, explained away.
Putin’s first assault was on NTV; a staunchly independent television station though editorially ‘manicured’ according to the personal imperatives of its then Oligarch owner - Vladimir Guisinsky. The state takeover, or expropriation, appeared an acceptable price to pay for what then seemed like the first stable government the new Russia had seen. The naivety of those of us who accepted this position was laid bare on July 3rd 2003 when Platon Lebedev was arrested and the Yukos affair began.
Concerns about Orban’s likely inclination toward a takeover of all state institutions were diluted by the previous Socialist government’s incompetence and barefaced lying as to the parlous state of Hungary's finances. A free market nationalist with a strong hand might just be what the doctor ordered to get the country back on track, some thought. It is even true the Fidesz party fairly won the parliamentary super majority they have since used to pass into law the new Constitution.
However, whilst the evils of the Putin clan in Russia - including sham democracy, subjugation of the rule of law at every level to political whim, vast personal enrichment to the tune of $billions (and serious allegations of extra judicial killing) – are of a magnitude that dwarf Orban’s sins; it is a fact that Orban & his Fidesz party have, in passing a grubby new constitution, consigned Hungary’s well earned democratic credentials to the dustbin.
The Central Bank is now under the political control of one hegemonic party. Constituencies have been gerrymandered to ensure that Fidesz should always maintain its 2/3rd’s majority - a play straight out of Putin’s handbook!
To quote the Financial Times: ‘The authority of the courts has been limited and the judiciary subjected to closer political supervision. The constitution asserts state control over personal conscience and faith. Abortion and same-sex marriages are outlawed and recognised religions limited.’
The problem for Orban is that Hungary is a small country of 10 million people without natural resources or any particular geopolitical importance. Whereas Putin enjoyed 8 years of extraordinary economic boom as commodity prices soared, while the political vice tightened & the world kept schtum; Hungary is already experiencing the damage the markets can inflict upon states that engage in such malfeasance. Hungary’s sovereign debt has been downgraded to Junk status and the Forint is at an all time low against the Euro. Yet another EU country is on the brink of default. The question is; does a country with such a constitution deserve to be in the EU at all?
