Panorama #2 - Panorama - LUPEF

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14. But couldn’t you also argue that moving from a communist system to a neo-liberal system would give the state of hungary some great opportunities, since they get to start “carte blanche”? In theory the answer is yes, but in practice the answer is no. In theory the hungarian political system emerged from nothing, a state of “tabula rasa”, and could therefore assume the kind of form and colour it wanted in respect to the formation of the political framework. If that is true that could have meant that the post-communist countries in eastern Europe could have been pioneers in politics, political science and governmental policies and implementation in general as well as for the construction of political parties specifically, a possibility for the replacement of the relatively normal classifications of parties on the right-left scale. Instead the hungarian parties became a mix of right-wing economics together with left-wing social healthcare as well as left-wing economics together with “austerity measures” etc. – a potpourri in other words. In retrospect, a blessed mix of policies of m i s c e l l a n e o u s origins designed under intense pressure may not be the best way to e s t a b l i s h a d e m o c r a t i c framework. Instead of an improvement, one may argue there was a decline in how to organize parties. Of course I’m not the one to judge and I do not, but the common notion isn’t all positive about it, to put it that way. And the flaw in the potentially grand plan of restructuring how politics work was the notion of the Westphalia order from 1648 as well as the idea that the countries started in a carte blanche mode à la John Locke. the reason why no attempts were done in improving political philosophy and in general the political framework could be derived from two important elements. the first is that the postcommunist hungary wasn’t used to choose their own way of politics which made them just grab and pick what fit their thought from existing ideologies rather than inventing a new ideology or mentality. the second notion was that liberalism was forced upon them, because staying with communism wasn’t an option. Of course it should be noted that the first elected government was the former communist party, due to the fact that people knew what they would get and had no clue what the other 200 parties were really offering. In the following elections however, as would become the hallmark of hungarian politics for the next two decades, the two largest parties switched positions from opposition to ruler. this is happening mainly because the parties on the left-right scale give the same promises as well as that both sides manage to fail equally good in delivering their promises. But yet, hungary was now part of the liberal world with market economy and everything attached to it. And that is why one could say that the bumpy road for hungarian politics to get a final form is still ongoing and is characterized by political instability and a big question mark in relation to what will happen. to understand hungary one’s memory of history must be quite good, because the general hungarian sees the Austro-hungarian Empire, that lasted between 1867 and 1918, as the greatest period of time the country ever has had and often b e c o m e s nostalgic about the former glory of hungary. Austro-hungary included the modern-day states of Austria, hungary, Croatia, the Czech republic, Bosnia and herzegovina as well as parts of Ukraine, Slovakia, Slovenia, Italy, Montenegro, Poland, romania and Serbia. the Empire was a dual monarchy and had two capitals, Vienna and Buda, the latter became Budapest in 1870 but was first called Pestbuda. to state it shortly: the Austro-hungarian Empire was a great power in Europe in the late 19th century and now contemporary hungarians look at that period as a glory period since they lost a lot of territory after the two world wars and I assume they enjoyed being a important power instead of a small state with transition problems. In hungary in general, as well as in Europe in common, somehow the people don’t really trust their politicians. the difference between hungary and the rest of Europe is that it is in this country that the distrust is greatest towards the policy makers and I can give you an example of why:
In September 2006 an audio tape containing the voice of prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsány were released and what was said was quiet impeccable/exquisite/fascinating – you name it. ”There is not much choice. There is not, because we have screwed up. Not a little but a lot. No country in Europe has screwed up as much as we have. It can be explained. We have obviously lied throughout the past 18 to 24 months. It was perfectly clear that what we were saying was not true. […] You cannot mention any significant government measures that we can be proud of, apart from the fact that in the end we managed to get governance out of the shit. Nothing. If we have to give an account to the country of what we have done in four years, what are we going to say? Naturally, the government's work is not constructed nicely, calmly or scrupulously. No. No. It is being prepared at a mad break-neck speed because we could not do it for a while in case it came to light, and now we have to do it so desperately that we ” have. ” No country in Europe has screwed up as much as we 15. are almost at the breaking point. And then we end up falling over because we cannot keep up the pace. This is the situation. In the meantime, we still have to come to an agreement with the free democrats because we still have ministerial problems – you know” – prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsány on a closed meeting for his party. For some reason some people didn’t like that te ruling party on a secret meeting admitted that they had lied in order to stay in power, which by the way was the first ever re-election of a sitting government in hungary. the hungarian constitution does not have a vote of no confidence implemented, so the prime minister just continued to run the country for quite a long time – to the next election, this despite major protests against the regime in power. After this speech – nothing changed. On the other hand the party didn’t get many votes the next election. Daniel Tell
Page 1: panorama.lupef.se 2
Page 4 and 5: 04. TEMA Läs, lär och briljera...
Page 6 and 7: 06. TEMA Ett samarbete på ruinens
Page 8: 08. TEMA Robotar tar över börsen
Page 11 and 12: 11. Singapore har haft en rekordart
Page 13: Hungarian Politics and mentality 13
Page 17 and 18: otrygghet var graffiti och våld. S
Page 19 and 20: Läs även vår webbtidning: panora

Panorama #2 - Panorama - LUPEF

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