Viktor Orbán's grip on government is suffocating democracy in Hungary

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/nov/08/viktor-orban-democracy-hungary

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At the end of last month, the Hungarian parliament – which is dominated by the Fidesz party, led by the prime minister, Viktor Orbán – passed a constitutional amendment on voter registration. The new amendment will allow citizens to vote in elections only if they register in advance either in person or electronically. Critics of this move have pointed out the new amendment will help the powerful leading parties at the expense of smaller political groups in the 2014 election: poorer and hesitant voters are less likely to register, and more likely to stay away from the ballot boxes on election day.

NGOs and analysts have warned that binding voting to registration will serve the political goals of Orbán, who today has a slight majority of support among voting age citizens, but wants to gain absolute majority in parliament by the modifications to the constitution.

Orbán knows exactly how hard it is to win elections. He spent 16 years in opposition. During this time, he created a centralised and well-disciplined rightwing populist party, which is probably one of the most professionally managed organisations of its kind in east-central Europe.

Since Fidesz came to power in 2010, the party has been aiming to strengthen its position as the dominant political force in Hungary. It is talking about leading the country for the long term and state television and radio are already under its control. Since December 2011, former state TV union leaders and NGOs have been holding protests in front of state TV headquarters against biased reporting. On 23 October, when hundreds of thousands marched on the streets of Budapest, state news preferred to cover a pro-Orbán march for seven minutes on the evening news. A similarly large opposition protest received barely a minute in coverage. The keynote speaker, former socialist prime minister and leader of opposition party Together 2014, Gordon Bajnai was filmed by state media from an angle and location that presented his voice as faint and his speech insecure. I was shocked by this footage on state TV, because I was present and Bajnai appeared confident and the crowd cheered his words.

Also on that day, the ministry of interior and the state news agency Magyer Távirati Iroda (MTI) may have deliberately dwarfed the numbers of opposition protesters to 20,000 and boosted pro-Orbán numbers to 400,000. Népszabadság, the country's best-selling daily newspaper, calculated that even if the pro-Orbán march would have covered the full surface of the route, having two people in every square metre, their numbers would have been no more than 180,000.

So what can be done? If voter registration becomes law in the near future, what will the reaction in the rest of the European community be? Some will call for a boycott, but the EU has a poor track record of making political sanctions work against its own members. When Jörg Haider was part of the Austrian government, he used openly antisemitic and xenophobic political rhetoric which enraged the EU. In 2000, 14 member states froze bilateral relations between the EU and Austria for seven months, but these sanctions were largely symbolic in nature.

International reaction will not force Orbán to change course. Instead, the people of Hungary will need to sort out their own fate. His paternalistic rule provides a second chance for Hungarians to reconsider what they failed to do in 1989. At the end of the communist era, civic society was not strong enough to challenge the interests of new and old elites throughout east-central Europe. Privatisations favoured the few, and masses slipped rapidly into poverty.

After 1990, civic society shrank, and important social, economic and political questions have not been raised since. But things may be about to change. NGO leaders have teamed up with Bajnai to start a discussion about how a better, fairer and more successful society could be created. Bajnai and his fellow NGOs want to create a large, central political force that entices voters both from Fidesz and the Socialist party.

This idea of a new, central force may well stand a chance of success in 2014 – as long as it can appeal to the large section of undecided voters. But its chances also depend on how Fidesz will legislate on voter registration, because its goal is to usher Fidesz voters to the polls and keep the undecided at home. Even a little more than 50% of votes will give Fidesz absolute supremacy in parliament.

Hungarians need political consolidation, fair and straightforward policies in today's tough times. Perhaps Bajnai – a calm, and intelligent EU-friendly politician – will convince them in 2014 that he makes a better candidate than anxious Orbán, who is apparently afraid to lose his laboriously gained power, and aims to be re-elected at any price.