They're off! Hungary's eight million-plus registered voters are at the polls. The elections are municipal; the implications national. In the country that in the 1980s used to be described as "the happiest barrack" of the Soviet camp, voters are deciding whether or not to punish their government of ex-communists for lying.
Lying, and having their leader confess to it on tape.
Hungary's blogging Prime Minister (blog.amoba.hu), Ferenc Gyurcsany, says he's not ashamed. "Well, dear friends," reads his entry of Sept. 17, "an audio tape surfaced, I don't know how, I don't know why, but I don't regret it. And I'm not ashamed of it either. I gave an impassioned speech at the end of May to the [Socialist] Party caucus ... Heartfelt and no-holds-barred, it was the kind of speech one offers to one's own friends and colleagues from time to time. I'm not proud of my adjectives, but I'm proud of my passion..."
The purloined tape of the passionate Prime Minister's speech was broadcast on Sept. 17. By the next day thousands had taken to the streets. Though not a patch on 1956, the protests, demonstrations and mini-riots were the most impressive since the toppling of Stalin's statue in Budapest two generations ago. For a moment it looked as if Hungarians had decided the best way to commemorate the 50th anniversary of a great revolution was to repeat it.
In the 16 years that have elapsed since the implosion of the Soviet empire, its former satellites in Eastern Europe have displayed a tendency to wander around in baffled circles. Unsure of how to overcome the grim legacy of 40-plus years of communist rule, the one-time "people's democracies" shuttled back and forth between moderately right-wing and not-so-moderately left-wing governments. The syndrome has been remarkably similar in countries that have little else in common. After the fall of communism, most elected staunchly free-market and sometimes nationalist-leaning governments. Then, impatient with the slow healing process and glacial progress of emerging from the rubble of a failed command economy, as well as dismayed by the growing pains of political and economic freedom, voters turned, often within a single electoral cycle, to the parties of what promised to be a new or "reformed" left.
The long-suffering ex-subjects of last century's Marxist experiment hoped they might get the best of both worlds. As often happens, what they got was the worst. Instead of the combined virtues of two socio-economic systems, they received their combined vices.
In 2002, it became Hungary's turn to combine capitalist greed, excess, inequality and insecurity with socialist inefficiency, corruption, humbug, waste and arrogance. The voters turfed out Viktor Orban's centre-right government, and gave the mandate to a socialist-liberal coalition, whose leader, Peter Medgyessy, had once been "agent D-209" with the rank of first lieutenant in Hungary's communist Interior Ministry. After running Hungary's economy into the ground in just two years (it didn't have far to go), Mr. Medgyessy was replaced as prime minister by an erstwhile leader of the Young Communist League -- and a post-communist millionaire -- named Ferenc Gyurcsany, a.k.a. the blogger, who then performed the remarkable feat of running the country even further into the ground -- yet still got re-elected (narrowly) in April this year. It seemed Hungarians were suckers for punishment.
The speech that sparked the September riots came in May, about a month after Mr. Gyurcsany's re-election. Using language reminiscent of a Marine sergeant, the Prime Minister castigated his caucus for complacency.
"There aren't too many choices," he said, talking about the economy. "There aren't, because we screwed up. Not a little, but in a big way. No country in Europe botched it the way we did. There's an explanation. We self-evidently lied throughout the last year, year-and-a-half. It was totally clear that what we said wasn't true ... And meanwhile we did nothing for four years. Nothing. I can't think of a single significant act of government to be proud of..."
And so on, for pages and pages. Hungarian-speakers can look at it on the Internet for themselves. It's a sobering read.
"Resign," demand the opposition and the protesters. "Why should he?" reply the Prime Minister's socialist fans. "The sun rises, and politicians lie. Big deal! At least he's honest about lying..."
Mr. Gyurcsany's position is that he has a mandate to govern for a fixed term, by Hungary's constitution: a mandate that isn't forfeited by any amount of frank talk about lying. If people don't like it, they can do something about it at the ballot box when the socialist government's term is up in 2010. Gotcha, protesters: You wanted the rule of law, now kindly abide by it.
Legally speaking, the ex-communist millionaire blogger may well be right -- but when jeering demonstrators in front of the Budapest parliament taunt him to come out and say it to their faces, Mr. Gyurcsany wisely declines. Perhaps less wisely, he has also declined to accept the results of Sunday's municipal elections -- which in Hungary are conducted along party lines -- as a referendum on his and his party's continued mandate to govern. This may have been an unnecessary precaution: As the polls are closing in Budapest, the socialist incumbent, Gabor Demszky, appears to have captured the mayor's office again. His win, even at a narrow 51%, may be enough to lend legitimacy to his party's embattled chief.
It isn't over, though, till the fat lady sings -- a role that has been assumed by Hungary's President, Laszlo Solyom. He galvanized protesters in front of the parliament building late Sunday by his televised call for the Prime Minister's removal as a necessary constitutional catharsis and purge. "The parliament decides on the person of the prime minister," the President intoned. "The parliament can restore the required social confidence."
And there it stands. 18 out of 19 counties go to the opposition, along with 19 out of 23 cities. With his self-taped admissions and salty language, the Prime Minister, who had ambitions of becoming Hungary's Tony Blair, may yet make it as its Richard Nixon.
Unlike 1956, few seem ready to die on the barricades. The neo-socialist state would need to be more vicious, and the protesters more desperate. Mr. Gyurcsany realizes that lying for socialism is one thing, but firing at demonstrators, even rioters, near the 50th anniversary of the uprising is the surest way to turn an embarrassment for the government into a disaster. And if a clash were to occur on Oct. 23, the magic date seared into the national psyche, there's no telling what might happen.
© 2006 George Jonas
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