A victory for democracy in Hungary

Hungarians went to the polls yesterday in parliamentary elections, and responded with a resounding "Ruszkik Haza!", telling Putin (and Trump) proxy Victor Orbán to fuck off. The opposition even gained a two-third majority, enabling it to amend the constitution and undo all of Orbán's fuckery (including the stacked electoral system which translates bare majorities into supermajorities).

The opposition front may be led by a right-winger, but I (and more importantly, Hungarians) will take a normal, democratic, conservative over a fascist any day. And he's promising the right things: normalising relations with the EU, joining the European Public Prosecutor's Office, and prosecutions for the corrupt beneficiaries of Orbán's regime. Hopefully that will include Orbán himself, for his role in channelling public money to his friends and family. Which means Orbán will either need to flee back to his master in Moscow, or face a prison cell.

Hungary is no longer a democracy

Since his election in 2010, Viktor Orbán has shifted Hungary sharply away from democracy and the rule of law, changing the constitution to stack the electoral system and the courts against his opponents, while dismantling the independent media. And now, the European Parliament has recognised the truth: that one of its members is no longer a democracy:

Hungary can no longer be considered a full democracy, the European parliament has said in a powerful symbolic vote against Viktor Orbán’s government.

In a resolution backed by 81% of MEPs present to vote, the parliament stated that Hungary had become a “hybrid regime of electoral autocracy”, citing a breakdown in democracy, fundamental rights and the rule of law.

While the vote has no practical effect, it heightens pressure on EU authorities in Brussels not to disburse billions in EU cash to Hungary that is being withheld over concerns about corruption.

Democracy is supposed to be a foundation of the EU, and its appalling that Hungary has been allowed to diverge this far from European principles before the Parliament has stepped in. And along with Poland, it shows that the EU needs effective mechanisms to sanction its own members to ensure their conformity with European law.

Hungarian elections: Putin's man in Europe survives

Hungary went to the polls today in parliamentary elections, in which would-be dictator Viktor Orbán - Putin's man in Europe - was facing a unified opposition for the first time since taking power in 2010. Unfortunately, it didn't go well:

Viktor Orbán has won a fourth successive term as Hungary’s prime minister, capping a campaign dominated by his controversial stance on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with a speech that appeared to mock Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the Ukrainian leader.

Ecstatic chants of “Viktor, Viktor” greeted Orbán as he addressed supporters of his Fidesz party outside its election headquarters on the banks of the Danube in Budapest as results made the scale of his victory apparent.

With nearly 86% of the vote counted on Sunday night, Fidesz was on course to increase its parliamentary majority by winning 135 seats in the 199-member parliament, crushing a six-party opposition bloc that united to form a common front aimed at unseating Orbán.

Instead, the ruling party has retained its two-thirds super majority, which has enabled it to reshape Hungarian politics and social policy during its 12 years in power.

Fidesz won just over 50% of the vote, but Hungary's unfair electoral system magnified that into a two-thirds majority. And this will further enable Hungary's slow transition from a democracy into an authoroitarian dictatorship. Orbán has already gone quite a way along that path (and went further, with pre-election amendments to electoral law to limit the ability of the opposition to contest elections), and unfortunately it looks like it will stay on that path. So now it will be up to the European Union to protect Hungarian democracy. On that front, there's already ongoing court action, and a cut in funding from the EU. And the war in Ukraine and resulting split between Poland (which is firmly anti-Russian) and Hungary has likely deprived Hungary of political cover in the EU council, potentially allowing further action.

More bigotry in Hungary

Last year Hungary ended legal recognition of trans people and banned gay people from adopting children. Now, they've followed that up with a Russian-style "propaganda law", banning "promotion" of homosexuality in schools or on TV:

Hungary’s parliament has passed a law banning gay people from featuring in school educational materials or TV shows for under-18s, as Viktor Orbán’s ruling party intensified its campaign against LGBT rights.

The national assembly passed the legislation by 157 votes to one, after MPs in the ruling Fidesz party ignored a last-minute plea by one of Europe’s leading human rights officials to abandon the plan as “an affront against the rights and identities of LGBTI persons”.

[...]

The Hungarian legislation outlaws sharing information with under-18s that the government considers to be promoting homosexuality or gender change.

There's an obvious parallel with the UK's infamous and now-repealed Section 28. While it was never tested in court, one of the reasons for its repeal (besides basic decency) was that it was believed to be inconsistent with the European Convention on Human Rights. The Council of Europe seems to think Hungary's law is the same, describing it as "run[ning] counter to international and European human rights standards". Hopefully this time there will be a legal challenge, and this institutional homophobia will be outlawed forever in Europe.

Hungary is now a dictatorship

Hungary has been a virtual dictatorship for a decade now, as Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has gradually eroded its democracy. But now, its official, with the passage of an indefinite emergency law allowing rule by decree:

Hungary’s parliament has passed a new set of coronavirus measures that includes jail terms for spreading misinformation and gives no clear time limit to a state of emergency that allows the nationalist prime minister, Viktor Orbán, to rule by decree.

Parliament voted by 137 to 53 to pass the measures on Monday afternoon, with the two-thirds majority enjoyed by Orbán’s Fidesz party enough to push them through in spite of opposition from other parties, which had demanded a time limit or sunset clause on the legislation.

The bill introduces jail terms of up to five years for intentionally spreading misinformation that hinders the government response to the pandemic, leading to fears that it could be used to censor or self-censor criticism of the government response.

No parliament, no elections, no oversight, and no criticism. There are obvious parallels with the Enabling Act of 1933 - except that that law had a sunset clause, and German MPs had to go through the charade of renewing it twice. There are no such limits on Hungary's dictatorship. Will the EU permit this? Unfortunately, its permitted everything else: the suppression of the opposition and the media, the attacks on judicial independence, the establishment of concentration camps for refugees. But if the EU will permit one of its members to become a dictatorship, then what is the point of it?

The EU acts on Hungary

Over the past few years, Hungary has been transforming itself into an authoritarian state. The government of Viktor Orbán has undermined human rights and the rule of law, attacked judicial independence, and shut down independent media. Not to mention being virulently Islamophobic. This is all a violation of European democratic norms, and its finally grown too much for the EU, which has voted to pursue disciplinary action against them:

The European parliament has voted to trigger the EU’s most serious disciplinary procedure against Hungary, saying the country’s government poses a “systematic threat” to democracy and the rule of law.

The vote was carried with the support of 448 MEPs, narrowly clearing the required two-thirds majority, after Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, was abandoned by many of his allies in the centre-right European People’s party (EPP).

[...]

It is the first time the legislature has triggered an article 7 procedure against an EU member state. The most severe punishment under article 7 is stripping a country of its voting rights in the EU.

Naturally the UK tories voted in support of Orbán, on the basis that the EU standing up for democratic norms would be a "dangerous precedent".

This is good news, and hopefully it will see the EU use these sanctions more widely against those members who are heading in an undemocratic direction. As for Hungary, ultimately Hungarians have to stand up for their own democracy. If they prefer to live in a dictatorship, there's not a lot the EU can really do, other than throw them out of the club until they've decided to be civilised again.

The EU needs to stand up against its racists

The European Union is founded on values of "respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities". Those values are under threat from several of its members. In Spain, the government has unleashed state violence against those who peacefully advocate secession. In Italy, the government wants to deport Roma, an ethnic minority who were targeted for extermination by the Nazis. And in Hungary, the racist government has just made it illegal for lawyers and NGOs to help refugees claim asylum.

These actions clearly contravene the EU's fundamental values. They may also explicitly contravene European law and the European Convention on Human Rights, and look likely to result in court cases. But more than that, they require political action from other EU nations to enforce the Eu's values. These are not things civilised, democratic countries which respect human rights should be doing. And insofar as a government by its actions consistently fails to meet that standard, the EU should be looking at suspending or even revoking membership. If Hungary and Italy want to go back to being 30's racist shitholes, then they can do it without belonging to the EU.

Hungary to set up concentration camps

Hungary's authoritarian nationalist government (in coalition with actual fascists) has just voted to detain all refugees in concentration camps:

Human rights groups have heavily criticised a vote by the Hungarian parliament to force all asylum seekers into detention camps as the country’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, called migration “a Trojan horse for terrorism”.

The asylum seekers will be kept in converted shipping containers while they wait for their cases to be heard via video-link as part of measures Orbán said were designed to save Europe. He considers the migrants, many of whom are Muslims, as a threat to European Christian identity and culture.

And so they'll be echoing Australia: detaining them in concentration camps and psychologically (and sometimes physically) torturing them until they "choose" to return to persecution. Its a gross violation of both the Refugee Convention and EU law, and arguably a crime against humanity. The question is whether the European Union will stand up for human rights, or whether it will allow concentration camps in Europe again.

New Fisk

Hungary must look to its own history for migrant guidance

Irony

Csanad Szegedi is a Hungarian politician. He was a founder of the fascist paramilitary Hungarian Guard, and in 2009 was elected to the European Parliament as a representative of the anti-Semitic Jobbik party. Except there's one problem: it turns out that Szegedi is Jewish:

Following weeks of Internet rumours, Szegedi acknowledged in June that his grandparents on his mother's side were Jews - making him one too under Jewish law, even though he doesn't practice the faith.

His grandmother was an Auschwitz survivor and his grandfather a veteran of forced labor camps.

Since then, the 30-year-old has become a pariah in Jobbik and his political career is on the brink of collapse. He declined to be interviewed for this story.

[...]

Under pressure, Szegedi resigned last month from all party positions and gave up his Jobbik membership.

That wasn't good enough for the party: Last week it asked him to give up his seat in the European Parliament as well. Jobbik says its issue is the suspected bribery, not his Jewish roots.

It's beautifully ironic that a leading anti-Semite would turn out to be Jewish – about as beautiful as finding out that a US Republican bigot is in fact gay. But its also deeply illuminating about Jobbik. When a party forces someone to resign from leadership positions (and wants to force them to resign from the European Parliament) for being Jewish, then those public denials of anti-Semitism ring kindof hollow.

Hungary considering Demeny voting

The Guardian has an interesting piece today about the Hungarian government's plans to introduce Demeny voting and give mothers extra votes for their children. This is being pitched as a democratic move, but its not; instead, the ruling Fidesz party - basically Catholic racists - is simply trying to strap the electoral chicken by giving extra votes to its core supporters, while explicitly denying those votes to groups who do not support them:

However, to counter concerns about the Roma winning more votes, Szájer said in the Hungarian case, the move would have "permitted the passage of a law giving mothers the vote on behalf of a maximum of one child".

(The Roma are a persecuted minority in Hungary, with a notably larger families than the rest of the population. Extra votes for children would boost their voting power significantly).

As I've said before, the key problem with Demeny voting is that it encourages the conflation of parents interests with those of their children (when, as we're seeing on climate change, on IP law, and all sorts of other issues, they are pretty much diametrically opposed). The Hungarian government's plan explicitly relies on this. But its not a democratic move; instead its just an undemocratic weighting exercise, every bit as objectionable as weighting by wealth or race. If the Hungarian government really cared about giving young people a voice, it would lower the voting age instead.

Toxic sludge is not good for you

Overnight, the collapse of a tailings dam in Hungary led to 600 - 700,000 cubic metres of toxic sludge from a mineral processing plant flooding local villages and spilling into a river. In addition to the force of the flood, it is also highly alkaline; it has already killed four people and injured over a hundred more, and the latter is likely to rise as chemical burns may take days to emerge. Its effects on the local environment are equally devastating, killing fish and contaminating land and waterways with heavy metals.

Its a signal warning of the dangers of the mining and minerals industry. These leaks happen a couple of times a year (list here), often with devastating results. Floods are bad enough; floods of toxic sludge which burn and poison and leave the land contaminated are another thing entirely.

If Gerry Brownlee had has his way, our national parks could have been exposed to this sort of risk (primarily from gold cyanidation and acid drainage). Fortunately, we stopped him. We dodged a bullet there, and we should be very glad of it.

Hungary votes II

Hungarians went back to the polls today in the second round of Parliamentary elections - and gave the right-wing Fidesz party a landslide victory. There's no question that Fidesz won, but at the same time the result highlights the perversity of the Hungarian electoral system.

Hungary uses a complicated version of Supplementary Member, with two rounds of constituency voting, regional lists determined by a separate party vote, and national "compensation seats" distributed according to the "fragmentary vote" (that is, the votes leftover when regional seats are allocated, combined with those for losing candidates). The result is a highly disproportional system. For example, Fidesz received 53% of the popular vote - and 68% of the seats. The Socialists got 20% of the vote and 15% of the seats, while the Green LMP got 7% of the vote and 4% of the seats.

The two-thirds majority artificially awarded to Fidesz as a result of this perverse system will allow them to change the constitution at will. And they plan to do exactly that, with changes proposed to the election system, media law, and local government. Some of these changes may be good (I don't know yet) - but the fact that they can be made unilaterally by a party with only 50% of the vote granted disproportionate power by an unfair electoral system is simply obscene.

Its a nice warning of the unfairness of SM systems, and a good reason to reject that system in 2011.

Hungary votes

Hungarians went to the polls in Parliamentary elections today, and decisively voted out their government. That's not surprising - just six months after they had been elected, the Socialist Prime Minister, Ferenc Gyurcsany, admitted to caucus that they had lied to win, and then proceeded to impose a neoLiberal austerity program. And from there, their fate was sealed. Despite Gyurcsany resigning in 2009, the opposition right-populist Fidesz has romped home with 53% of the vote.

The socialists got what they deserved - I have no pity for liars - but the real worry isn't Fidesz (who are somewhat to the left of the neoLiberal "socialists" economically), but their potential partner Jobbik. Jobbik describes itself as a "principled, conservative and radically patriotic Christian party". What they actually are is fascists, down to having a uniformed paramilitary who engage in thuggery. They are anti-Semitic, anti-gay, and (more importantly for Hungary) anti-Roma. And they just got 17% of the vote. While Fidesz has a majority by itself and doesn't need them for ordinary legislation, the two parties are close, and there's some suggestion Fidesz wants to tweak the constitution, which will give Jobbik some power. Which is a scary, scary prospect.

(The positive sign is that the Green LMP went from nothing to 7.5%. So there's some hope for Hungarian politics yet).

There is still a second round of voting to come - Hungary uses a frightfully complicated SM system with multiple rounds for the electorate vote - so the results aren't final yet. There are still well over a hundred seats to decide, including 60 "compensation seats" allocated by national-level proportional representation. But Fidesz already has enough to be the government. The question is whether they'll make it to two-thirds by themselves.

Lying to win in Hungary

Six months ago, the Hungarian Socialist Party gained a narrow victory in that country's Parliamentary elections. Now Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany has announced in caucus that his party lied to win by painting a completely false picture of the success of their policies, and that "tough reforms" are now needed.

There are obvious echoes of Roger Douglas and Ruth Richardson here, though they at least had the cover of not being in government before they "discovered" that radical "reform" was required. But unlike New Zealand in the 80's and early 90's, Hungary has a (roughly) proportional representation system and a coalition government. It will be interesting to see what the Hungarian Socialists' coalition partner makes of this sudden bout of honesty and proposed change of direction, and whether coalition politics really is a check on outright dishonest politicians who lie to gain election...

Election Day

No, not here - but in Hungary, Italy and Peru.

In Hungary, the ruling Socialists (who are in fact quite fond of the free market) are facing a tight race with the conservative Young Democrats under a complicated MMP-style system which adds in runoff voting and regional lists. According to preliminary results posted on European Tribune, the Socialists have a narrow lead but more importantly their current coalition partners the Free Democrats and the new MCF Roma Alliance have made it into Parliament.

In Italy, Silvio Berlusconi is fighting to stay out of jail under a new electoral system he stacked for that very purpose. The election has turned into a flat-out referendum on Berlusconi and Italy's participation in Iraq, and the left-wing Unity bloc has enjoyed a consistent lead over the past few months. The election runs over two days, so there won't be any results till tomorrow, and it remains to be seen whether the new election system will have the intended effect.

In Peru, exit polls show Ollanta Humala leading over his two major rivals, but not by enough to avoid a runoff election. Humala is a leftist candidate akin to Venezuela's Hugo Chavez. Like Chavez, he's a former military officer, and like Chavez, he first tried to gain office through a military coup before turning to the ballot box. Unlike Chavez (at least as far as I know) he has a nasty history of human rights abuses, and was reportedly involved in torture and murder while fighting the Shining Path in the early 90's. While he'll make the Americans scream, I'm not sure that his election lead is really something to celebrate...

Shrinking coalition watch

Hungary is next off the sinking ship, and will withdraw its 300 troops by March. While they're non-combatants (similar to New Zealand's contingent), it still marks a withdrawl of international support for the US project in Iraq, backed by enormous public opposition to the US in Hungary.