Because many things in Hungary can only be decided by a two-thirds majority, Viktor Orbán does not concentrate all his attention to centrist voters when courting support. The result is almost inevitably populism.
The good(ish) news first. There will be no exit of Hungary from the EU, not with Viktor Orbán, who, on the contrary, is preparing for a stronger position in the EU. Presumably, the year 2030 will create a new situation in which Hungary will go from being a net recipient to a net contributor. Which is a considerable challenge when bearing in mind that Hungary is the second biggest beneficiary of EU budget.
The bad: The Hungarian prime minister and Fidesz chairman is, by Western European definition, the very model of a populist and will remain so for constitutional reasons. But Orbán is of a different weight than the usual well-known populists: they are mostly opposition politicians, at best junior partners in a government coalition. Orbán, on the other hand, has been a member of the European Council of Heads of State and Government for twelve years. He is so not in spite of but because of his breakneck rhetoric, be it about the death penalty, about migrants, this time about race, subsequently specified as cultural differences.
Orbán has always been a tribune of the people. In 1989, he demanded, “Russians, go home!“ Was that populism? No quite. He is a strategic populist. He wants to appear more confident to foreign countries than in proportion to the importance of his socially and economically slightly fragile country. And since losing his first government office in 2002, he has been relentlessly chasing a two-thirds parliamentary majority.
What was negotiated in 1989
It is the Hungarian Basic Law that requires Orbán to obtain two-thirds majorities in parliament. One might object that this situation is their own fault, because this constitution is what Orbán’s Fidesz and their permanent appendage KDNP (Christian Democratic People’s Party, member the European Poeple’s Party) have imposed. However, the compulsion of the creative man to achieve the two-thirds majority, which is almost unattainable in a multiparty landscape, has deeper roots. Hungarian politics have always suffered from the incessant mutual distrust of all political rivals, which is a reflection of the prevailing behavior of it’s population.
Those who do not make unrestrained use of their own pre-eminence here but want to hold their own in competition, spend more devotion on limiting their rivals’ possibilities than on facilitating their own success.
As early as 1988/89, when the multiparty system was being prepared, the negotiators built in barriers against the supposed autocracy of a simple majority by subjecting all too much of the decision-making by a two-thirds majority. Soon thereafter, the first freely elected prime minister, Antall, who had an essentially Christian Democratic coalition with a simple majority, agreed with the opposition Liberals led by Péter Tölgyessy on a list of cardinal laws requiring a two-thirds majority, although they merely regulated the execution of constitutional rights.
Wooing the marginal voters
Orbán’s party, probably fearing a return of the Socialists under Ferenc Gyurcsány, expanded the cardinal fields to 35, in the new Basic Law. They range from all laws for the protection of the family to social laws and state organization laws to the designation of secret service resources. If a prime minister wants to govern through or at least shape, it is essential to have two-thirds of the parliamentary seats secure. This is because, although the opposition has proven incapable of achieving a governing majority, it could, with one-third plus one seat, twist the majority in continuous operations that are going in circles.
In the hunt for the two-thirds majority, however, Orbán cannot limit his wooing to the generally middle-class camp, which other parties are also courting, but must reach out to sentimental voters on the far left and right, whether with socialist populism or nationalist populism. A depressive character can be found among Hungarians across all directions, which expresses itself in collective existential fears. After Orbán’s election in 2010, his deputies gathered at the monument to Lajos Batthyány, the prime minister who was shot in 1849, before the constitution of parliament on May 14th.
For years Orbán has adopted a similar diction of fear. This seduces him into making statements about demographic catastrophes of all kinds, such as being overwhelmed by foreign people or cultures. An end to populism cannot be expected as long as there is no explicit will. Gyurcsány, the only head of government who succeeded in re-election before Orbán, was also a populist in his own way. It seems like it would take the de-eletion of cardinal legislation from the constitution to allow prime ministers to abandon populism aimed at marginal voters.
Moreover, at the meeting of the right-wing conservatives of America, the Hungarian prime minister serves critics to a globalised world. In his speech, he calls for a fight against progressive forces.
In comparison, Hungary has just under ten million inhabitants, America 330 million. The state of Texas alone, where Viktor Orbán was on stage Thursday 4th of august, is seven and a half times the size of the Eastern European country. But the Hungarian prime minister doesn’t miss the opportunity to draw parallels again and again in his speech. Orbán – “leader of a country besieged day after day by progressive liberals” and “the only anti-migration leader on our continent” – complains a good five-and-a-half thousand miles from Hungary about perceived bullying from Brussels. Something, after all, Texas knows from the government in Washington.
Orbán can hardly provoke with his statements here, unlike in most European countries. That’s why he addresses the “left-wing media” right at the beginning, whose headlines about his appearance he already wants to know : Orbán, the European racist, the anti-Semite. The crowd in the Trinity Ballroom at the Hilton Hotel in Dallas laughs. That’s the tone and rhetoric that goes down well here, with visitors to the meeting of America’s right-wing conservatives, where numerous Trump supporters, conspiracy theorists and religious rightists also gather.
In the next half hour after this remark, the Hungarian prime minister says all sorts of things that would justify such lines. For example, he goes after the Hungarian financial investor and sponsor of non-governmental organizations, George Soros, who comes from a Jewish family. He is his opponent – “he doesn’t believe in anything we believe in”, Orbán shouts into the audience. Soros has an “army at his service”, non-governmental organizations, universities, research institutions. “He uses his army to impose his will on his opponents, on us Hungarians, for example”.
Orbán wants to hit back at institutions in Brussels and Washington
The war rhetoric runs through the Hungarian prime minister’s half-hour speech, which was delivered before a crowd of several hundred. “Hungary is an old, proud, but David-sized nation standing alone against the woken, globalist Goliath” Orbán says. Claiming they need total defense. People should join forces, Orbán shouts into the room in English. Hungarians, he says, know how to defeat enemies of freedom on the political battlefield. And continues by saying “We have to fight back the institutions in Washington and Brussels”.
Orbán doesn’t skip a topic he knows will excite his mostly right-wing conservative audience in Dallas : the nation, migration, religion and family policy. He says he was the first to say no to illegal migration – it’s the first long applause at his speech. Immigration, he says, is the final and decisive battle of the future. With the wall he built in Hungary, he’s hitting a nerve in Texas right now. Republican Governor Greg Abbott, who spoke right before Orbán at the start of the conference, wants to put up a wall on the border between Mexico and Texas. He is sending migrants on buses to the capital, Washington, to demonstrate against the Biden administration’s migration policy.
There is also particularly strong support for family policy, the heart of our politics. Progressives around the world, he claims, do not protect families; for them, that construct does not even exist. “If traditional families no longer exist, there is nothing that can save the best from going under.”According to the Hungarian government’s will, a couple should be heterosexual, married and have many children. However, families with high incomes are the main beneficiaries of the government’s housing bonuses and cheap loans… “The mother is the woman, the father is the man, and leave our children alone” Orbán shouts.
At this point, there is the longest applause of the whole performance. A homosexual couple is not recognized as a family in Hungary. Not only is there a need for a physical wall against migrants, Orbán says, but also a legal wall around children to “protect” them from gender ideology. His government, he said, has decided that more genders are not needed. And continues with these heavy words : “We need more Rangers, fewer drag queens and more Chuck Norris”. Again, a plus with Texas voters. Hungary, the prime minister asserts, is the only country in Europe where it’s safe to walk at night.
Orbán’s speech is a scary call to arms. As for his answer to the question about how to fight ? “Play by your own rules” Orbán says. It’s simple, he adds. “You have to play to win”. Against the Biden administration, he sneers, “Mayday, mayday, please help us – we need a strong America with a strong leader” People have seen the kind of future the globalist ruling class has to offer, he said. “But we have a different future in mind. The globalists can all go to hell. I came to Texas”.
Biography
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/06/viktor-orban-cpac-far-right-us-trump
https://www.statista.com/chart/18794/net-contributors-to-eu-budget/
By The European Institute for International Law and International Relations.
