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Hungarian leader's politics have nothing to fear |
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Hungarian leader's politics nothing to fear
April 16, 2006
BY JOHN O'SULLIVAN
Last Saturday the largest gathering of Hungarians in history took place inBudapest. It was an election rally, held by the governing center-right
Fidesz Party and addressed by its prime minister, Viktor Orban, andestimates of exactly how many people attended it range from 400,000 to
1million. No one seems to dispute that it was the largest-ever gathering ofHungarians.
What makes this estimate more than just a candidate for the Guinness Book ofRecords is that the previous weekend Fidesz and Orban were reported to have
lost the first round of elections to the opposition Socialists--and to beheaded for defeat in the second round next weekend. What was happening?
The answer to that question is of interest to more people than justHungarians.
Orban had been expected to win the first round, and the social democraticEuropean press has been expressing surprised delight at his setback. ''It
spares Europe from another coalition government of conservatives and the farright,'' whooped the Financial Times.
Their surprise was understandable because, under Orban, Hungary hasprospered more visibly than any other central or east European country. It
has joined NATO and helped to extend the ''zone of stability'' in Europe. Itwas one of the winners in the Kosovo war, not only assisting the NATO effort
logistically but also foiling a Russian plan to seize Pristina airport byrefusing Russian military planes the right to overfly Hungary. It looked as
if Fidesz deserved to win because it had delivered the goods.
To the European Left, however, this posed a real threat. If Orban had joined
Berlusconi in Italy, Jose Maria Aznar in Spain and the new center-rightDanish government in a Europewide coalition of pro-American conservative
parties, the Left would be facing a reversal of its policies across thecontinent--including on whether or not to help the U.S. topple Saddam in
Iraq.
Stopping Orban became a priority. During the election campaign, therefore,
the social democratic parties complained that the conservative Orban was''interventionist'' and not sufficiently friendly to foreign investors;
officials from the EU complained that he was ''Euroskeptic''; theinternational press complained that he was too ''nationalist'' and allied to
the far right, and the general buzz became that he was ''authoritarian.'' Inother words, Orban was the victim of a classic ''scare'' campaign.
Examine these allegations individually, however, and a very differentpicture emerges.
The one charge with substance is that Orban occasionally intervened in theeconomy to protect Hungarian interest--but these interventions were modest
compared with his general support for free markets and trivial when setagainst Hungary's economic recovery. Besides, the charge of intervening
excessively comes oddly from socialists.
When EU officials charge someone with ''Euroskepticism,'' their target is
either too pro-American or too supportive of free markets. Viktor Orban wasguilty on both counts: He has been an outspoken supporter of the United
States in European politics and anxious to ensure that EU regulations wouldnot strangle Hungary's deregulated competitive economy. (This looks like a
good point for full disclosure: I have known Orban since 1994 when he helpedestablish the New Atlantic Initiative to bring Europe and the United States
closer together.)
The charge leveled by the Financial Times that Orban was too close to the
far-right is extremely serious--but it tells us more about the Times thanabout Orban. To be sure, in Hungary's multiparty system Orban might have had
to rely on the parliamentary support of smaller parties, including afar-right one. But the opposition socialists are the direct heirs of the
Hungarian communist party.
Here the Times was clinging to the convention that post-communists are
respectable even as the sole or majority governing party, whereaspost-fascists or even mere ''nationalists'' cannot be tolerated even as
silent minority partners in a coalition. This convention skews politics tothe Left throughout Europe--and Orban was undermining it at its roots.
Not by allying himself with far-right nationalists (in fact, his strategywas to take votes from them) but by establishing a Budapest museum devoted
to the crimes of communism in a former KGB prison. Only when both forms oftotalitarianism are equally unrespectable will European politics finally
lose its taint.
As for ''authoritarian,'' the word means someone who exercises power
unconstitutionally and illegally. Orban has never done so. He is a strong,dynamic and forceful leader of a democratic government. But the adjective
for that is ''authoritative.''
If Orban wins against the mathematical odds stacked against him in the
second round, it will be the greatest comeback since Lazarus. Yes, moreremarkable even than the return of Hugo Chavez since it depends on the free
votes of free people.
But after the largest gathering of Hungarians in history, nothing can be
ruled out.
Copyright (c) The Sun-Times Company
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