Does Hungary need a change of government?

The year 2010 was undoubtedly a huge turning point in the history of the Third Hungarian Republic. However, this is the first time when a government is exposed to such an intense, continuous verbal „drumfire” both at home and abroad, as the Orbán government is for the eighth consecutive year. Just to mention a few examples, there was an outburst of panic surrounding the media law, the taxation of banks, and the new Constitution of Hungary. More recently, the new NGO law (regulating foreign-funded organisations) and the protection of Schengen borders has been under attack. Certain powers have been trying to prove at all costs that the rule of law in Hungary had disappeared.

By contrast, it is apparent that even at the end of the Orbán government’s third administration not a single critical oppositional crowd emerged whatsoever. There have been some social groups protesting for their interests, which is in a democratic country absolutely acceptable, but no general movements could have been observed.

It is reasonable to ask the question: Why is this so? To find the answer let´s look into the facts instead of guesswork . The answer is to be found above all in the examination of the keystone that even the most rigorous critics and political competitors can hardly dispute: the Orbán government developed a successful economic policy.

Indisputable economic results

Since 2013, after the initial difficulties, mainly due to the economic and political crisis of 2008-2009, the Hungarian economy has been producing a moderate but gradual development curve and it has reached annual growth rates of 2-4%. This growth is mainly supported by the stable and predictable macroeconomic environment: the gradual reduction of the central bank base rate, the conversion of foreign-currency loans to Hungarian Forints, the restructuring of public debt, the closure of the European Union Excessive Deficit Procedure and the reduction of labour taxes. Moreover, since 2015-2016 the achieved results have been spilling over to micro level. The voters’ quality of life has improved: this is reflected by the record low unemployment rate, the reduction of personal income tax, and the gradual raising of wage levels by 10-15 %.

We cannot deny that the state has proved to be a good and responsible owner of public property overturning the „liberal axiom” (according to said concept the state is incapable of fulfilling this function and the market should take care of this instead), which was especially widespread in the 1990s as a result of the former state-socialist systems. Taking over the strategically important infrastructure networks (e.g. public utilities) into state ownership, clearly has a positive effect on our national self-determination and widens the country's room for manoeuvre. A good example of the effective asset policy serving national interests was buying back the 21% of MOL share package in 2011. Aaccording to the most conservative estimates, it is already worth 100 billion Hungarian Forints more than it was 7 years ago.

The results achieved in this field so far guarantee such a high level of social trust with the government that its political aspects should not be lost after this April.

Political stability

Nowadays, in European democracies, it is very rare to get the majority needed for a stable and smooth governinment. Lengthy, often unclear coalition negotiations can further erode citizens’ confidence in democracy’s achievements and in the institutional system. Furthermore, it can easily cause protracting domestic crises with spill over economic effects deterring investors. In the last few years, we had the chance to witness several longer (Spain, Belgium, Holland, Germany) and some shorter (Great Britain, Greece, Croatia) interregna as well.

In contrast, the Hungarian government received authorization from the public to carry out its program, and they got this chance already twice. The Fidesz-KDNP coalition won the second election already in a one-round election system, for which it received a lot of criticism both domestically and from abroad. At the same time, critics should/take into account that a similar one-roundelection system is used also in Great Britain - in the country which is considered to be the birthplace of modern democracy. In addition to the abovementioned considerations, we need to highlight also the other benefits of a majority government. A government with stable parliamentary support can for example respond with life-saving speed in case of an emergency or an exceptional cross-border economic-humanitarian crisis (e.g. the management of the migration crisis).

The lack of an alternative

Last but not least, we should mention the current condition of the Hungarian political arena’s other actors. The opposition groups are fragmented and almost antagonistic to each other.
The unending, closed-door negotiations, positioning and partial cooperation between the „fragment parties”, which consist of the leftovers of the left-liberal powers governing before 2010 and the groups founded after 2010, have been almost comically incomprehensible to the general public. Therefore, even on a theoretical level, the legitimacy of a multiparty coalition government formed by the current opposition is questionable. These parties’ only meeting point, namely dispatching Viktor Orbán and his government, probably would not be sufficient for the country's salvation.

The achievements made so far are not merely goals, but rather the stages of a larger, comprehensive vision, the lifespan of which is impossible and useless to count in four-year parliamentary cycles. Our changing world and our continent within it can have many demanding challenges in store for us this year that we can only overcome in unity, by moving in one direction. Preserving the country's stability remains a key issue.

Source of diagrams: Eurostat