Hungarian elections

Speaking as someone who _was_ in fact waiting for just such a something, any chance of some more translations? I assume that Cryptic Ned’s mates the SZDSZ are the Free Democrats, (and therefore speculate that the digraph “SZ” operates as a single unit in abbreviations – it represents the sound of English “s”, non-Hungroonophones will be engrossed to know if they didn’t already), but I am a bit perplexed why these such non-nationalist budget cutters are mates with the free-spending Socialistes.

(And I have more reservations than my erudite Zweetie that this such spending is especially likely to kickstart a Keynesian recovery and reduce the deficit to Euro-worthy proportions in anything resembling short order.)

Where can non-Hungarians most usefully get briefed on this stuff, anyway? I’m stuck mostly with the Intergalactic Scrapbook-Tribune, but if there are better options in English, French, Zwedish, Dutch or even Cherman I’d be glad to know. (I bet it’s the FAZ, I just bet it’s the bloody FAZ. My Cherman improves almost daily, but the FAZ remains insolently out of reach. Although having looked, they don’t seem to say much beyond confirming my conjecture that the SZDSZ are the liberals.)

Although SZDSZ (pronounced “S-DAY-S”) was formed originally around a core of socialist-era liberal dissidents, and would thus appear to be natural enemies of the Socialists, the party landscape has so developed that Socialists are a better partner than the FIDESZ. FIDESZ began as a “young liberal” organization, moved to fill a vacuum on the right as a “civic” party, and under Orban, became increasingly nationalist and populist, with promises in subsidies and direct payments well in excess of the Socialists in the past two elections. (In retrospect, it is now clear that Orban’s youthful speeches were more nationalist than liberal democratic). The “nationalist” portion of FIDESZ’s identity has to be taken very seriously, as they have targeted voters who previously went for the far-right nationalist parties, and their rhetoric against the “cosmopolitans” in the SZDSZ and Socialist Party is often tacitly understood to include (if not simply encode wholesale) an anti-semitic component. Indeed, the opposition of FIDESZ to internationalism, liberalization, and “cosmopolitanism” has made the SZDSZ the party with which FIDESZ would least likely form a coalition. The Socialists, in the meanwhile, have probably reformed as much as possible without risking the loss of their core voters. Given the constraints on any state within the EU, and in particular on the states which entered in the last enlargement, the Socialists have very little room to move about from any course other than liberalisation and better budgeting.

And let’s not even get into how to pronounce the prime minister’s name.:)

“Ferrents Joor-chahny”?

The WSJ Europe gets around to editorialising:

This brings us back to the financial markets’ welcome of the election results, which might be due to too much wishful thinking rather than concrete evidence of a change of heart in Budapest. “People think there is no escape from fiscal consolidation and that if there is just one way, the government will just have to follow it,” Gyorgy Barcza, chief economist of ING Bank Hungary, told us. But this is certainly not the experience of Hungary or much of Europe these days where populist talk of some vague notion of “social justice” has replaced real policy making. Hungary’s deficit problem is primarily a spending problem. In order to fix it, the government would have to cut entitlements, such as reducing the size of the public workforce (a quarter of all employed), cutting pensions or health care spending — in short, the opposite of populism.

Mr. Gyucsany yesterday announced “the most intensive reform period since the change of the regime,” referring to the collapse of the Communist system. Whether the incumbent really understands the seriousness of the situation or simply understands what the markets would like to hear remains to be seen. It isn’t very reassuring that he failed to give any details of his plan. The markets might not be calm for long.

Now I’m wondering whether anyone managed to vote in the Italian, Peruvian and (first round of the) Hungarian elections on the same day. The trouble is that Italy and Peru allow expat voting but Hungary doesn’t, so only triple citizens residing in Hungary would be able to pull it off.