New liberal party meets friendly fire
March 30th, 2013Left-wing commentators deplore the decision of former SZDSZ President Gábor Fodor to found a new liberal party – in addition to a series of post-SZDSZ groupings.
Gábor Fodor, a liberal politician who started his career in Fidesz, and joined the SZDSZ in 1993, announced the founding of the Hungarian Liberal Party. Fodor said that his pro-market party would support a flat tax, decentralization and privatization.
In Népszabadság, Ervin Tamás finds it peculiar that former dignitaries of the liberal Alliance of Free Democrats (SZDSZ) who dropped out of Parliament in 2010, have founded several parties with the proclaimed aim of representing liberal voters. Tamás believes that these small new parties centered around one former liberal luminary each, have no chance of passing the 5 per cent threshold at the 2014 elections. Tamás speculates that the real intention of the founders is to reach an agreement with the main left-wing parties and secure for themselves a place on their party lists, rather than providing a true liberal alternative.
The left-wing opposition has been diverse, but they all support progressive taxation, Balázs Böcskei, director of the pro-Gyurcsány IDEA think tank writes. The left-wing analyst argues that the flat tax system introduced by the Orbán government impairs social solidarity and increases inequality. Böcskei doubts that Fodor’s neoliberal principles, which echo some of the policies of the Orbán government, will prove popular among voters or could be part of a left-wing anti-Fidesz cooperation.