As was to be expected, the 56th anniversary of the revolution of 1956 occasioned a symbolic battle between the Prime Minister and his left-of-centre opposition, with both sides seeking to present themselves as the true heirs of 1956 and attempting to mobilize a larger crowd than their opponents. Whereas Orbán and Fidesz clearly won the battle of numbers, the show was stolen by Gordon Bajnai, the country’s former Prime Minister who used the occasion to declare his intention of returning to politics on the side of the opposition. In what follows, the author reflects upon the state of Hungary’s democratic opposition after 23 October 2012 and addresses the tricky question of co-operation between competing left-of-centre forces.
Between a previous and a new way of structuring identity
"Liminality". This is the expression anthropologists use to describe the quality of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the middle stage of rituals, when participants no longer hold their pre-ritual status, but have not yet begun the transition to the status they will hold when the ritual is complete. During a ritual's liminal stage, participants "stand at the threshold" between their previous way of structuring their identity, and a new way, which the ritual establishes. It is precisely in such a stage that Hungary’s disoriented and fragmented left-of-centre opposition groups currently find themselves. Previous ways of constructing their identity and image, as well as defining their relationships are becoming not only uncertain, but untenable. Citizens disgruntled with the System of National Co-operation, who in April 2014 will want to pass judgment on the new regime, are putting increasing pressure on them to put an end to their navel-gazing “identity politics” and take a clear stance on whether they are willing to join forces in order to defeat the ruling right-wing coalition. This doesn’t mean that all opposition supporters will want to see a broad “rainbow coalition” left of Fidesz, but the assumption that great numbers are looking for a force or alliance of forces capable of defeating the ruling coalition appears warranted. The need to find common ground also stems from the neatly crafted electoral law that Fidesz put in place, which punishes smaller parties running alone.
While the Socialists and the Greens sitting in parliament and the new political movements present on the streets (the Milla Movement, Solidarity, the Democratic Coalition) are well aware that citizens who have the intention to vote will soon begin moving towards the groups or alliances exhibiting credibility and force, they have so far been unwilling to leave their trenches. All of them had good reasons to do so. To begin with, the Socialist Party has benefited from a small boost in support (up from app.11 percent to 14 percent amongst the voting age population this year), raising hopes that it may be able to defeat Fidesz (that can currently count on the backing of 23 percent) on its own in the end. The Greens (LMP), led by the conviction that it is not possible to work together with unreformed, “oligarchic” forces and following the strategic aim of breaking the bipolar party system, have been reluctant to enter into any kind of alliance with the existing left and right. The two emergent movements, Milla and Solidarity, have taken, and benefited from, an anti-party protest line (the first seeking support from the urban middle-classes, the second from working-class and lower-middle class people living outside Budapest) and therefore refrained from moving too close to political parties. The only group that has been actively seeking to work together with others was former Prime Minister Gyurcsány’s Democratic Coalition, a party that has little chance of making it into the parliament alone and which none of the other groups wishes to cooperate with (because its leaders is still one of the least popular politicians in Hungary).
"The Person Who Just May Be Able to Defeat Orbán"
It was this delicate, but inherently unstable order that the re-appearance of Gordon Bajnai – former Prime Minister (2009-2010) - on the political centre-stage toppled on 23 October. His 30-minute speech, held at the 5th mass demonstration organized by Milla in front of tens of thousands of protesters on the 56th anniversary of the 1956 revolution, immediately catapulted the former head of Hungary’s caretaker government (2009-2010) into the spotlight and established him as The Person Who Just May Be Able to Defeat Orbán. How?
First, Bajnai proved that, contrary to the expectation of many, he has the fighting spirit and political tongue necessary for challenging Viktor Orbán. Independent political analysts saw more conviction and clout in his speech than in the Prime Minister’s who had gathered his supporters a few hundred meters away at the same time Bajnai spoke. Second, the latter managed to present himself as a man capable of overcoming his narrow self-interest and working together with others towards a common goal. This image of the ‘Unifier’ materialized in the announcement that Milla, Solidarity and the newly created Patriotism and Progress Association are forming an electoral alliance named ‘Together 2014’, which would be working with civil society and established political parties for a goal that unites all: democratic ‘regime change’. Moreover, Bajnai declared that the newly created alliance would be seeking to occupy the vacated political centre by drawing support from “hopeful left-wingers, disappointed right-wingers, politically abandoned free-thinkers and committed Greens”. By reaching out to these groups, he implicitly entrenched himself as an unavoidable figure, one who could actually lead the “alliance of those who want a normal country”. Third, and finally, Bajnai demonstrated that he was capable of drawing a crowd almost as big as the one that gathered in front of Parliament to support Viktor Orbán, despite the fact that the Socialist Party did not mobilize its supporters this time around (contrarily to the previous demonstrations organized my Milla). This means that he is effectively the only opposition politician who can simultaneously move masses and can credibly say that he is ready to govern.
As opposed to most of the rituals studied by anthropologists, the outcomes of liminal stages in politics are largely unpredictable. Despite the emergence of new institutions and relationships in situations of high fluidity, these may in the end fail to become entrenched. In the case of ‘Together 2014’ the highest risk appears to be the already visible attempt at character assassination. Here, we must note that Gordon Bajnai – as political personality – was so to speak not born of an immaculate conception. He was previously Ferenc Gyurcsány’s business partner and was in fact drawn into politics by the former Prime Minister. Fidesz and the mighty media machine backing the party may not only capitalize on this personal link (branding him as a Gyurcsány clone), but may also accuse the man of corruption - attacking his record as the person overseeing the work of the National Development Agency (2006-2007) and as head of the Ministry of Development (2007-2009) – and of implementing draconian austerity measures during his premiership. The predictable propaganda onslaught will make the situation of those who are ready to work together with Gordon Bajnai rather difficult. This is especially true for the Greens who have earned their credibility by calling for ‘elite change’ and presenting themselves as the guardians of a new democratic beginning.
Two options for LMP
Analysts have pointed out that the emergence of ‘Together 2014’ poses a significant dilemma for LMP. The formation of the alliance has effectively nullified LMP’s official strategy (adopted at the party’s congress in January) of forging closer ties with Milla, Solidarity and a smaller left-wing party, 4th Republic. This leaves the Greens with two options: keeping their line and running alone in 2014 or joining the new alliance. Both contain major threats.
The biggest risk associated with the first one is the possibility – not to say probability – of falling out of parliament. LMP currently polls around 7 percent amongst likely voters with a party preference. The party’s share of the vote may fall below the 5 percent threshold if sympathizers opt to support a force/alliance that they perceive as having a greater chance to beat Fidesz. Furthermore, joining forces with the Milla-Solidarity-Bajnai trio risks tarnishing LMP’s credibility in the eyes of its core supporters and threatens to blur the party’s ‘ecopolitical’ identity.
The second path - joining the new alliance - may arguably be the party’s best chance to work towards the core ideal of renewing Hungarian political life and the strategic goal of securing a stable position between the left and right. As a force that has the potential to bring centrist voters on board, the Greens could have a significant say in the future composition of ‘Together 2014’ as well as the alliance’s political program. In this they could also count on Milla, whose key organizers share the Greens’ conviction that genuine democratic renewal will only be possible with new faces and policies, and are not very keen on co-operating with the Socialist Party (1). In the best of cases the co-operation of the Greens and ‘Together 2014’ could allow for the construction of “a centre of gravity, a new pole in Hungarian civic and public life, strong enough to defend its core ideal of radical democratic renewal from attacks by authoritarian competitors”, as envisioned by one of Milla’s strategists. The Greens’ leadership certainly realizes that choosing the appropriate path is its current top priority: the party Congress is expected to decide on the matter in mid-November.
With all of the above in mind, it is difficult to see how some kind of co-operation with the Socialist Party will be avoidable. Because of the new first-past-post electoral system left-of-centre opposition parties will be under strong pressure to present common candidates (or to refrain from presenting candidates in each others’ strongholds) who stand a chance of defeating right-wing and far-right contenders. Opposition parties will also have to highlight what kind of co-operation they are ready to envisage in case of a centre-left electoral victory in 2014. The most tragic outcome of the next elections would actually not be a Fidesz victory, but a centre-left victory followed by instable or bad governance, which would make the political pendulum swing strongly back to the right. Here, the main question is whether the parties are able to reach a strategic agreement: to form a ‘technical coalition’ with a limited mandate of amending the supermajority laws that prevent a simple majority from implementing its program and calling new elections after the re-instatement of the previous electoral system (that provided breathing space for smaller political formations); or to fill out a four-year term in view of repairing the economy and mending deep societal rifts.
The experience of Slovakia’s own ‘democratic coalition’ - formed by the Slovak Democratic Coalition (itself an alliance of five parties), the Party of the Democratic Left, the Party of the Hungarian Coalition, and the Party of Civic Understanding in 1997 to defeat Vladimír Mečiar – or the Serbian Democratic Opposition – formed by no less than 18 parties in 2000 to defeat Slobodan Milošević – indicate that broad alliances are often capable of successfully managing situations of liminality (e.g. securing entry into the European Union), but have lesser chance of implementing important social and economic reforms, due to ideological differences between the partners. This is something Hungary’s opposition groups will have to seriously ponder already during the phase of alliance-building. Only if the strategy is thought through meticulously will the project of rebuilding Hungarian democracy stand a fair chance of succeeding in 2014.
(1) It’s worth noting that Milla could have chosen to remain an independent movement seeking to influence voters’ behaviour from the margins of the political field. If its leaders chose a different track it is mainly due to a practical, but strategically rooted problem that was palpably hurting the movement. The tens of thousands of sympathizers supporting it were increasingly dissatisfied with the limited scope of the movement’s activity; they wanted Milla to do more than organize mass demonstrations twice a year. This growing disgruntlement pushed Milla’s organizers to re-define the movement’s purpose and strategy. It was strategist Péter Csigó’s analytic framing that constituted a point of departure for this conceptual work. Pondering on the strategy of left-of-centre groups Csigó formulated his core idea thusly: “If the... emerging democratic forces have refused to forge a “rainbow coalition” against Fidesz thus far, this is because they see the forces of the mainstream political left (the MSZP, its recently established splinter party Democratic Coalition, and the now-extinct liberal satellite party SZDSZ) as key protagonists and beneficiaries of the very same authoritarian, socially unfair and highly ineffective system that Fidesz has taken over and turned to its own benefit during the last two years. For the new democratic resistance, the mainstream left would be a highly dubious ally in the fight against the mainstream right, since these two have been competing and collaborating factions of the same political cartel for the past fifteen years.” It was this idea – that the Fidesz regime constitutes the last logical step in Hungary’s authoritarian backslide – that paved the way towards the plan of creating a new independent pole in Hungarian political life. Source: "Dismantled Democracy, Ungovernable Country: The Derailment of Hungary in the 2000s and Prospects for a Democratic Recovery"
Kristóf Szombati is co-founder of the green party (LMP) and co-ordinator of the Heinrich-Böll-Foundation’s activities in Hungary.