Concentrated orange: Fidesz and the remaking of the Hungarian centre-right, 1994–2002

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Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank her co-contributors to this collection for the many exchanges that helped shape this article.

Notes

Pronounced FID-ESS. The party changed its name during the period considered here, from Fiatal Demokraták Szövetség (Federation of Young Democrats, Fidesz) until 1995 to Fidesz–Magyar Polgári Párt (Fidesz–Hungarian Civic Party, Fidesz–MPP) subsequently. Here, ‘Fidesz’ is used throughout for simplicity. Polgári is translated as ‘civic’ to follow the party's own practice; the term is discussed below.

The label is applied on the basis of parties' relationship to the central institutional development addressed, not ideological analysis. These four parties – or key figures from them, where parties split – were all formally integrated to some degree into Fidesz or the Fidesz-led bloc by 2002. As such, they were distinct from the extremist Party of Hungarian Justice and Life. ‘Right’ refers to the centre-right plus Justice and Life. ‘Moderate’ and ‘radical’ are used purely relatively, to distinguish tendencies within centre-right parties and party groupings.

See Cs. Kiss, ‘From Liberalism to Conservatism: The Federation of Young Democrats in Post-Communist Hungary’, East European Politics and Societies, Vol.16, No.3 (2003), pp.739–63.

Although by no means fully. In particular, this article does not attempt a full account of Fidesz's electoral performance. Fidesz in the electorate is considered in Zs. Enyedi, ‘Cleavage Formation in Hungary: The Role of Agency’, paper prepared for the ECPR Joint Sessions of Workshops, Edinburgh, 2003.

For this reason, Hanley and Szczerbiak's four types of explanation are interpreted in terms more of the party system than of individual parties – although, as already indicated, the two levels are intertwined.

H. Kitschelt, Z. Mansfeleova, R. Markowski and G. Tóka, Post-Communist Party Systems (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999); M. Vachudova, ‘Right-Wing Parties and Political Outcomes in Eastern Europe’, paper prepared for the American Political Science Association Annual Convention, San Francisco, 2001.

This article draws on a more detailed study of Hungarian centre-right developments that forms part of the author's PhD thesis. The support of the Economic and Social Research Council is gratefully acknowledged.

For the distinction between the party in public office, the party in central office and the party in the country, see R.S. Katz and P. Mair, ‘The Evolution of Party Organizations in Europe: The Three Faces of Party Organization’, American Review of Politics, Vol.14 (1993), pp.593–617.

The opposed choices of Fidesz and its liberal partner, the Free Democrats, when faced with the apparent choice between the right and the communist successor party after 1992, spelled the end of the liberal ex-opposition pole in the party system and the victory of bipolarism along left-liberal and right-wing lines. The sources and wisdom of these critical liberal party decisions remain bitterly contested, among both politicians and commentators. The importance of the formation of the Socialist–Free Democrat coalition is touched on below; but for the purposes of this study, Fidesz's position on the centre-right is taken as given.

The extreme ‘populist–national’ group under István Csurka founded the Party of Hungarian Justice and Life. Three of the Forum's ‘national liberal’ MPs, meanwhile, joined the Fidesz parliamentary group. In retrospect, the start of centre-right organizational concentration around Fidesz might therefore be dated to autumn 1993.

In 1990, Antall had appointed László Surján to what was then the only Christian Democrat-held ministerial post in his government, over the head of the Christian Democrat leader (whom Antall did not regard as ministerial material). Antall then (intentionally) further facilitated Surján's elevation to the Christian Democrat leadership by despatching the incumbent as Hungary's ambassador to the Vatican: see J. Debreczeni, A Miniszterelnök. Antall József és a rendszerváltozás (Budapest: Osiris, 1998), p.101; on the Christian Democrats more generally, see E. Pék, ‘Koalíciós függésben – KDNP’, in A. Böhm and Gy. Szoboszlai (eds.), Parlamenti választások 1994 (Budapest: MTA Politikai Tudományok Intézete, 1995), pp.165–75.

The career of this term encapsulates the post-1994 development of the Hungarian centre-right. In May 2003, after the period discussed here, Fidesz changed its name again, from Fidesz-Magyar Polgári Párt to Fidesz–Magyar Polgári Szövetség. This was partly in recognition of the ways in which the organization had already altered, and partly to signal the further changes in organizational form and strategy it was making in response to its 2002 election defeat. Whereas in 1994–95 Fidesz had wanted to be part of an alliance, therefore, by 2003 it had become one.

This sketch draws especially on J. Debreczeni, Orbán Viktor, 2nd edn. (Budapest: Osiris, 2002), also cited elsewhere. Debreczeni was one of the ‘national liberals’ expelled from the Democratic Forum in 1993. He sat out the term as an independent and did not return to electoral politics. He was an adviser to Orbán from 1994 to 1996, when he broke with the Fidesz leader over Orbán's treatment of the Szabó group. As a political commentator, Debreczeni has published sympathetic, but in the latter case also more scholarly and critical, biographies of Antall and Orbán.

See Népszabadság, 4 Dec. 1997. The electoral system is discussed below.

In September 2000, Fidesz and the Christian Democratic Alliance signed a co-operation agreement that allowed the latter to nominate members to Fidesz's National Board, and each partner to have non-voting representation in the other's presidium; this was supplemented in May 2001 with an electoral pact for the 2002 parliamentary polls.

The terms are Debreczeni's: Orbán Viktor, pp.290, 308–12.

See T. Kovács, ‘FKGP: A népi-nemzeti-keresztény politizálástól a polgári összefogásig’, in A. Bőhm, F. Gazsó, I. Stumpf and Gy. Szoboszlai (eds.), Parlamenti választások 1998 (Budapest: Századvég/MTA Politikai Tudományok Intézete, 2000), pp.144–51.

For the by-elections, see the reports by Á. Sándor in the 2000 (pp.631–44), 2001 (pp.643–59) and 2002 (pp.932–44) editions of the Hungarian Political Yearbook: S. Kurtán, P. Sándor and L. Vass (eds.), Magyarország politikai évkönyve (Budapest: Demokrácia Kutatások Magyar Központja Alapítvány, annual publication), hereafter MPÉK. For the Democratic Forum initiative generally, see G. Kuglics, ‘A Békejobb 2000’, Politikatudományi Szemle, 2001, No.4, pp.77–95.

Reprinted in MPÉK 2002, pp.1162–3.

See Népszabadság, 20 Dec. 2001.

See M. Duverger, Political Parties, 3rd edn. (London: Methuen, 1964), pp.216–28; and K. Benoit, ‘Evaluating Hungary's Mixed-Member Electoral System’, in M. Shugart and M. Wattenberg (eds.), Mixed-Member Electoral Systems: The Best of Both Worlds? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp.477–93.

This cuts both ways, however: before the 2002 elections, the Democratic Forum needed Fidesz's help to get into parliament at all; but Fidesz needed the Forum not to run separate – and potentially unsuccessful – lists, in order to avoid losing a potentially crucial two or three per cent of the vote for the centre-right camp.

The effect is strengthened because candidates can run on a regional and the national list, giving them two chances to take a list seat.

B. Fowler, ‘The Parliamentary Elections in Hungary, April 2002’, Electoral Studies, Vol.22, No.4 (2003), pp.799–807.

As this article went to press, the Democratic Forum was running independently in the June 2004 European Parliament elections. This falls into the same pattern of behaviour, representing yet another attempt by the party to break the five per cent barrier as the basis for running separately in the 2006 parliamentary polls.

S. Saxonberg, ‘The Influence of Presidential Systems: Why the Right is So Weak in Conservative Poland and So Strong in the Egalitarian Czech Republic’, Problems of Post-Communism, Vol.50, No.5 (2003), pp.22–36.

Strictly speaking, the referendum was on the timing, not the mode, of presidential election, but its proxy character was well understood, at least at elite level.

Similarly, the stability of the Hungarian electoral system arguably reflects party interests and behaviour, as well as shaping them: see Benoit. S. Birch, F. Millard, M. Popescu and K. Williams, Embodying Democracy: Electoral System Design in Post-Communist Europe (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002), ch.3.

This is not to say that the Socialists and Free Democrats necessarily lack their own sources of ‘party-like’ elite norms – not least, in the case of the Socialists, the communist period.

Although we might ask why Polish centre-right elites do not seem to have done more ‘catching-up’ by the late 1990s.

See R.L. Tőkés, Hungary's Negotiated Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).

In April 1998, the month before the elections, only 21 per cent of respondents expected Fidesz to win, against 59 per cent for the Socialists: Századvég/TÁRKI data in MPÉK 1999, p.693.

Kitschelt et al., pp.64–7.

As will be clear from the fact that this section discusses the ‘right’ rather than the ‘centre-right’, the broad conception of the right generated by the national and socio-cultural divides cannot, for example, in itself distinguish between more moderate and more radical varieties.

See A. Szczerbiak, ‘The Polish Peasant Party: A Mass Party in Postcommunist Eastern Europe?’, East European Politics and Societies, Vol.15, No.3 (2002), pp.554–88.

Kitschelt et al., pp.69–92.

On these issues, see especially A. Körösényi, ‘Revival of the Past or New Beginning? The Nature of Post-Communist Politics’, Political Quarterly, Vol.62, No.1 (1991), pp.52–74.

Kohl would, with an equal lack of success, advise Orbán eight years later to form a ‘grand coalition’ with the Socialists: see Debreczeni, Orbán Viktor, p.356.

We might ask why, if the parties of the 1990–94 administrations were subsequently constrained by considerations of reputation, Fidesz was clearly not. The most likely answer would be that pre-1994, Fidesz had not made an ideological appeal, instead basing its popularity on its generational identity and its focus on practical issues; this later gave it more room for manoeuvre: see Kiss.

For one example, concerning the constitutional and symbolic spheres, see B. Fowler, ‘Nation, State, Europe and National Revival in Hungarian Party Politics: The Case of the Millennial Commemorations’, Europe–Asia Studies, Vol.56, No.1 (2004), pp.57–83. Other policy examples include a tougher stance on lustration, greater support for the traditional churches, and a higher priority for support for the Hungarian minorities outside Hungary.

In accepting, György Antall seemed to confer his late father's approval on Orbán; rumours abounded in the mid-1990s that there had been some kind of deathbed ‘passing of the mantle’ from Antall to Orbán; according to Debreczeni, whose source was Antall's son, there was no such meeting, but Antall did telephone Orbán during his final hospitalization and urge him to remember who they had fought against together at the Round Table: Debreczeni, A Miniszterelnök, p.370; Orbán Viktor, pp.284–5. Like Debreczeni, Antall's son broke with Orbán in 1996 over the latter's abandonment of Szabó's moderate Democratic Forum wing.

For the argument on the regime divide, see A. Grzymala-Busse, ‘Coalition Formation and the Regime Divide in New Democracies’, Comparative Politics, Vol.34, No.1 (2001), pp.85–103. Grzymala-Busse tests whether all the members of an administration come from the post-opposition or post-regime camps, not whether all the members of the post-opposition or post-regime camps join an administration.

Including those Free Democrat elites and voters who would not cross the regime divide, and instead left the party.

One of the most important collections of polgári writings was entitled ‘Janus-faced Transition’: M. Schmidt and L.Gy. Tóth (eds.), Janus-arcú rendszerváltozás (Budapest: Kairosz, 1998), available in English as Transition with Contradictions (Budapest: Kairosz, 1999) or From Totalitarian to Democratic Hungary (Boulder, CO: Atlantic Research and Publications, 2000). A second Hungarian-language collection was published as Zs. Körmendy (ed.), Jobbközéparányok. Janus-arcú rendszerváltozás II (Budapest: Kairosz, 2002). The taster of the polgári ideology presented here also draws on L. Bogár, ‘Csapdában’, in MPÉK 1995, pp.245–50; A Polgári Magyarországért (Budapest: Fidesz, 1996); Gy. Tellér, ‘A rendszerváltozás két útja’, in MPÉK 1999, pp.17–28; and Gy. Tellér, Hatalomgyakorlás az MSZP-SZDSZ koalíció idején (Budapest: Kairosz, 1999).

According to one 2000 poll, the Fidesz-led government's most popular policies were promising to raise the minimum wage, stopping large price rises, and increasing state support for large families: Medián data in MPÉK 2001, p.800.

In a March 1998 poll, over a third of respondents identified with polgári from a choice of ten alternatives: Századvég data in MPÉK 1999, p. 662. In a December 1999 poll, asked to choose four terms to describe their political views, 40 per cent of respondents included polgári, against 27 for ‘Christian’, 9 for ‘right-wing’ and 7 for ‘conservative’: Marketing Centrum data in MPÉK 2000, p.760.

See A. Bozóki, ‘The Ideology of Modernization and the Policy of Materialism: The Day After for the Socialists’, Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, Vol.13, No.3 (1997), pp.56–102.

L. Kövér, ‘A Fidesz-Magyar Polgári Párt és a Független Kisgazdapárt koalíciós megállapodása 1998-ban’, in MPÉK 1999, pp.336–46. On these bodies, see also Debreczeni, Orbán Viktor, pp.275–6, 282–3, 291–4, 326, 353–4. On a similar process of centre-right ideological construction in the Czech Republic, see S. Hanley, ‘The New Right in the New Europe? Unravelling the Ideology of “Czech Thatcherism”’, Journal of Political Ideologies, Vol.4, No.2 (1999), pp.163–89.

This phenomenon was seen most drastically in the party's 2003 reorganization, after the period considered here, in which several long-standing senior Fidesz figures were effectively demoted, in the interests of the party's further transformation into an electoral conglomerate: see Zs. Enyedi, ‘Cleavage Formation in Hungary’.

Members of Fidesz leadership bodies to 1999 are listed in Cs. Machos, A magyar parlamenti pártok szervezeti felépítése (1990–1999) (Budapest: Rejtjel, 2000), pp.107–8; later data are at <http://www.fidesz.hu>. Personal data were taken from various parliamentary almanacs.

For the 1993 Fodor—Orbán conflict, see Debreczeni, Orbán Viktor, pp.227–43; for Fodor's account, Gy. Petőcz, Csak a narancs volt (Budapest: Irodalom, 2001), pp.307–21. On the party's 1993 organizational changes more generally, see M. Balázs and Zs. Enyedi, ‘Hungarian Case Studies: The Alliance of Free Democrats and the Alliance of Young Democrats’, in P.G. Lewis (ed.), Party Structure and Organization in Eastern and Central Europe (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 1996), pp.43–65; and I. van Biezen, Political Parties in New Democracies (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2003), ch.5.

Debreczeni, Orbán Viktor, p. 487.

See I. Stumpf, ‘Kormányzásváltás 1998-ban’, in MPÉK 1999, pp.324–35.

Reprinted in MPÉK 1999, pp.893–900.