With Hungary among European nations hardest hit by the world recession, Fidesz, the mainstream center-right party led by former prime minister Viktor Orban, is widely pegged to gain a commanding lead in the first round of voting in the upcoming parliamentary election — as much as 60 percent, according to recent polls.
However, the far-right Jobbik party has also capitalized on rising nationalism and a resurgence of anti-Semitism and anti-Roma sentiment linked to the downturn. Analysts give it a good chance of coming second with a recent Gallup poll putting the party on 17 percent.
That, in turn, would spell catastrophe for the governing Socialists, who are overwhelmingly blamed for the economic hardships. Polls project that they could get less than 20 percent of the vote — a stunning reversal from the 43 percent support they received in 2006.
While Fidesz and the Socialists have been around since the first democratic elections in 1990, Jobbik is a relative newcomer, bursting onto the scene during last year’s elections for the European Parliament, winning nearly 15 percent of the votes — nearly three times as much as any other far-right party in Hungary since the end of communism.
Jobbik’s rise also has been aided by the popularity of the Magyar Garda, or Hungarian Guard, an extremist group whose uniforms are reminiscent of those worn in the 1940s by the Arrow Cross, Hungary’s infamous wartime Nazi party.
The Garda was co-founded by Jobbik leader Gabor Vona, although he is no longer an active member. It was disbanded last year by the courts, but continues to exist under a new name.
The Garda’s most confrontational actions have been a series of marches through small countryside towns and villages meant to intimidate their large Roma populations.
An unprecedented series of Roma killings in 2008 and last year claimed six lives in several villages.
“A very different type of voter is in the northeast part of the country,” said analyst Csaba Toth of the Republikon Institute.
“Many lost their jobs and are voting for Jobbik only because of the anti-Roma sentiment. They feel the most threatened by the minorities, live near them ... and believe it is their money that gives them their social subsidies,” Toth said.
Speakers at party rallies also often cater to anti-Semitic feelings among their supporters.
A law criminalizing Holocaust denial was passed by parliament in February on behalf of “our nation’s colonizer, Israel,” said Lorant Hegedus Jr, a Calvinist minister who campaigns for Jobbik.
However, Jobbik could find the going far tougher as the economy begins to recover.
“Those Jobbik supporters want good governance and if Fidesz does a good job,” they will drift back to other parties, said David Hejj, a research fellow of the Szazadveg Foundation in Budapest.
Pollsters say Fidesz may get a two-third majority in the 386-seat legislature, which would allow it to modify the Constitution and other laws needed to implement oft-postponed reforms in local governments and the electoral system.
The new government’s biggest challenge, however, will be to lead Hungary out of a deep recession, which saw the economy shrink by 6.3 percent last year and the unemployment rate rise to an all time high of 11.4 percent last month.
Hungary received a standby loan of 20 billion euros (US$27.5 billion) from the IMF and other institutions in late 2008 and has been forced to implement a series of cutbacks and austerity measures to keep the budget deficit under control.
Fidesz, helped by the Socialists’ unpopularity and Jobbik’s extremist agenda, has been declared certain to win the election for months, allowing it to campaign without divulging too many details about its agenda.
“The problem with Fidesz’s program is its lack of overall clarity and direction,” said political analyst Grace Annan from London’s IHS Global Insight. “It is so far ahead in the opinion polls that it does not need to give away its socio-economic policy secrets.”
Orban said some tax cuts would be implemented from July 1 and others next year, but did not offer specifics. Fidesz has also promised to create 1 million jobs over the next decade and halve the number of parliamentary lawmakers and municipal councilors.
Still, the party seems to be aware that veering off the present course of restrained spending might once again shake the trust of international investors and test relations with creditors.
“This is one of the most difficult questions that we will face in the upcoming months and years,” Fidesz spokesman Peter Szijjarto said. “We are asking for advice from the EU ... about how to clean up the [economic] picture and still not lose the confidence” of the markets.
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