Marginal opposition is small but heterogeneous
June 4th, 2013A conservative analyst suggests that the LMP is gathering people with surprisingly disparate opinions, but they have one thing in common: they all risk not making it into the new parliament next year.
The main speakers at a conference on Hungary’s future, organised by LMP’s Ökopolisz Foundation were “real stars”, including former president László Sólyom, economist Péter Róna, a former banker in London and New York, and Fidesz MP József Ángyán, who is leaving his parliamentary group in protest against the land lease programme through which, he claims, the government is distributing wealth to oligarchs. They all denied involvement in any political project, but were all extremely critical of the government’s performance. The press believes they might at least support LMP in its next electoral campaign.
In a guest comment on Heti Világgazdaság online, Péter Techet remarks that marginal forces have united in a strange “system-critical front” in Hungary. Anti-globalists, like “Chavesist” LMP MP Gábor Scheiring is a peculiar companion for former President László Sólyom, who is a conservative liberal. József Ángyán, on the other hand, is a fighter for the interests and rights of small scale farmers and professes right-wing views, hardly compatible with LMP’s main partner, the anti-establishment, extreme left-wing 4K movement. Liberals, right- or left wing, ecologists, far-left basis democrats and anti-globalists have one thing in common, Techet continues, namely that if the parliament to be elected in one year’s time will be confined to Fidesz, the MSZP and Jobbik, then all these disparate views, groups and currents will be left outside the political system. That may, however be enough to unite them, and as strange as it may seem, Techet does not rule out that they might make it into parliament in 2014, as voters make their choices on the basis of “misty myths, rather than political ideas or even material interests”. If this heterogeneous group wins seats in Parliament, the conservative analyst concludes, it will have to represent interests, ideas and policies that in other countries belong to several competing parties.