Happenings

I know, it has been quite a while since I have posted. Things have finally gotten a bit hectic here (which is a good thing) with work, so there is, at least, now a bit of income!!! But the biggest news happening in Budapest right now is probably the "presidential" election that will be concluded this weekend. I will try to give an overview of the system and situations as I know them in this post.

It is actually quite a fascinating process. For a bit of (very) brief history, Hungary has only had a democratic system of government for the last 20 years, ranking it as a mere infant among the number of democratic countries. As it has been (jovially) explained to me, it would seem that when Hungary adopted the "democratic" system, it looked to all of its European neighbors' governmental systems and drew one piece from each. While this would, on the surface, seem to be a good idea - providing Hungary with all of the advantages of each system - it alternatively presents some interesting "side-effects". I would like to preface this post with the following disclaimer: I do not purport that any of what I am about to say is absolute truth. I am only presenting the various information that I have gathered through many different sources, including both students and one news website that discusses Hungarian politics. So I really have no idea if any of what I have been told is completely biased bologna, but I have done my best to collect the nuggets of honest explanation.

Hungary's parliament is bi-cameral, as it is in the US, however only one house of Parliament is currently in use. There are 386 seats in the government, aloted based on the percent of votes each party wins during two rounds of elections. The first round of votes is open for any political party to participate in. When the votes are tallied, any party winning at least 5% is allowed to participate in the second round of voting. Only constituencies where one party doesn't win by 50% can vote during the second round. (Or when special circumstances arise, such as very close calls... hmm, seems to me that this leaves a hole the size of the Grand Canyon for politicians to call for a R-E-C-O-U-N-T!)

In this year's election, the four parties with the required 5% include Fidesz, with 51/52% of the vote during the first round, by far the most support, and greatest long-running opposition to the incumbent party; MSZP, (pronounced MSP) the incumbent Socialist party, accused of stealing all of the money in the government; Jobbik, essentially neo-Nazis who scooped up an alarming 16% of the vote, a far-right (or "nationalist" if you drank the cool-aid) group that would like a "Hungary for Hungarians" and has been twice-told to disband its "Hungarian Guard" essentially a rogue military; and LMP, which means Lehet Mas a Politika: Politics Can be Different, who just scraped by with 7% (although in its first year on the scene, it fared better than other new kids on the block, earning the right to the second round and at least some seats in the government.

While it is already a done deal for Fidesz to take over, the real issue at stake for Sunday's election is whether Fidesz will gather enough support to win a 2/3 majority, which in the meager 20-year history, has not yet been done. The most interesting (albeit frightening) part of this is that with 2/3 of Parliamentary seats, Fidesz has power not yet held by any party in democratic Hungary, such as the ability to alter the constitution. In addition to this, they have many aims to change the system, which would essentially go without audible opposition if the three other parties combined only constitute 1/3 of the "congressional" votes.

The most highly contested issues (or at least the only ones I know about) in this election include how to reduce the size of Parliament (or the lack of necessity thereof), regulations concerning the providing of dual citizenship, reducing corruption (which I don't believe anyone actually expects to happen...), and whether to decrease the required percentage of the votes to be admitted into Parliament from 5% to 3%.

The mood of many of the Hungarians I have spoken to seems to "run the gamut" between complete apathy (which, how could you blame them when every political headline seems to share the theme of corruption and political shenanegins) and moderate interest. All in all, it seems that the only people who really care about politics are the politicians. Negative advertising is running amuk, and people here seem more focused on spending their weekend relaxing in the ever-warming weather than taking seriously a presidential election.

I will hopefully be able to give some more details after the weekend. I will also include some of the more interesting/informative articles I have read in case anyone else finds this interesting...Everyone enjoy the spring!