Hungary: A Weimar for the 21st Century?

[Dan the Roman]

To point out the obvious/what everyone else is thinking, etc...

J.J., the reason why 'Weimar' was used as the title for the thread was almost certainly because the name has a certain resonance in this sort of context. Whereas, 'Horthy' doesn't mean much to anyone these days (if it ever meant much at all) and, anyway, is only arguably more 'relevant' because of geography.

It is very close to a repeat of the late 1930's Hungary, in terms of party domination.  Weimar was situation where there was polarization and center finally sided with the extreme right, against the extreme left.

The title is as good as "Reductio ad Hitlerum" would be.  "Hugary slipping toward Fascism," might have been a lot better. 

I think there are parallels between the government in the 1930's and today's Hungarian political situation.  And I would call the Hungarian government of the 1930's Fascist, though not Nazi.

Austria is almost certainly the best example. There the Christian Social and Social Democratic parties traded power. The Christian Social party was moderate and Dolfuss had a moderate reputation, but when the SDs refused to play ball in 1932 he had to go to the non-Nazi fascists in the Heimwehr. He then became a prisoner of them, and eventually of Mussolini.

In effect you a had a normal center-right party, which moved into an unwanted coalition with the far-right - with the real blaming going to an electorate that was running rapidly to the right.

Fidesz = Christian Social
Socialists = Social Democrats but weaker and more corrupt

[Dan the Roman]

Looking at the new political system, Krugman is on crack.

Th existing political lines favored the Left massively. Fidesz won 42% of the single-seat vote in 2006 compared to 40.3% for the Socialists, but only won 68 seats as opposed to 98 for the Socialists. Under the new lines Fidesz would win 96 as opposed to 97 for the Socialists.

Claiming that the new maps are unfair because they would change the results of elections Fidesz actually won more votes in is absurd.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_parliamentary_election,_2006
http://lapa.princeton.edu/hosteddocs/hungary/Beyond%20democracy%20-%2027%20Nov%202011.pdf

[Dan the Roman]

Uhm, that second link you posted makes an elaborate case for the new boundaries being extremely biased towards the right? Also, I apppearantly recall reading somewhere that under the new boundaries Fidesz could lose an election 40-52 and still walk away with a majority of seats. Sounds quite fair to me.


I can understand you wanting to score some cheap points on Krugman, just try not to do it on the back of the half of Hungarians who don't want to live in some sort of pathetic parody on a fascist banana republic. Deal?

The piece is disingenous because its claims for bias are based on how much better the new boundaries are vis-e-ve the old ones, arguing that because the right gains its biased. its like claiming new lines in Britain under which the Tories would have won 50 more seats in 2010 would be biased towards the Tories. Compared to the status quo yes, but it would bring them more or less into line with fairness.

In the case of the 40-52 figure, its calculated by assuming that all the small parties that win support through the regional seats end up with their votes wasted - ie. the plan does discriminate against all the 3-7% parties that tend to ally with the Socialists, but if you assume they will actually behave differently and form joint lists a lot of that disappears.

Again, the change in single member constituencies based on the 2006 results are to go from 68-98 Fidesz to 96-97 Fidesz when Fidesz in fact won 42-40 in the popular vote. Thats far closer.