MSZP in shambles but Fidesz takes no chances
March 12th, 2014An independent conservative commentator wonders why Fidesz is not content with its comfortable lead in the polls and bothers to flood the media with government advertisements. A liberal commentator complains that the opposition’s only strategy seems to be to wait for major mistakes on the part of government, and has now even begun to blame its coming defeat on the LMP. One centrist analyst suggests that it is time for the MSZP to disappear from the scene because of its endemic corruption
On Mandiner, editor Ákos Gergely Balogh criticises the government for placing its own ads on commercial TV channels during the electoral campaign. He admits that incumbent governments have never showed restraint in this respect, but this time there is something more to it, since the main commercial TV stations do not take ads from parties, as a new law bars them from charging a fee for campaign spots. Thus, opposition parties’ messages are absent from the screens, while utility tariff cuts, the main theme of the Fidesz campaign, are widely popularised. And anyway, Balogh asks, why does Fidesz need to resort to such practices when it leads in the polls by a huge margin?
Imre Para-Kovács, writing for HVG, says even though the government is guilty of enough damage and polls indicate that a sizable chunk of the electorate wants to see them go, the opposition alliance – which has just recently renamed itself to make matters worse – is unable to capture that vote with their list and with candidates who repel more voters than they attract. Their strategy, he jokes, seem to be to wait for “major Fidesz leaders to say something outrageous enough to make voters rush to the polling station”. On top of all this, he remarks indignantly, the MSZP-Together-PM-DK-Liberal alliance already blames its potential defeat in April on the LMP for refusing to join them.
In an unsigned commentary, Véleményvezér says that even if Mesterházy started well, trying to keep the old guard at bay, the “Socialists past has caught up with” him after the Simon-scandal broke (see BudaPost February 10) and Fidesz-friendly media published a book by former MP János Zuschlag who accuses the MSZP and Gyurcsány of all kinds of misconduct (see BudaPost March 10). To make matters even worse, Gyurcsány “came in through the window after being shown the door”. Mesterházy’s work to renew the Socialist Party, Véleményvezér concludes, has come to naught and it’s time for “this unreformable MSZP” to disappear from politics.