Hungary’s capital Budapest on Saturday, April 13, to shore up support for the ruling centre right alliance which is struggling to avoid an election defeat.
Organizers from Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s centre-right Fidesz party trumpeted crowd numbers of about two million, but local television networks and journalists at the scene revised that turn-out downwards.
However the demonstration, held in front of the neo-Gothic Parliament building, was seen as impressive for a country of just over 10 million people and underscored international concern about nationalism here.
HOMELAND
"We have entered a world where we can openly and bravely declare that the homeland is more than the 10-million-strong Hungary," said Orban, as nationalistic songs reverberated throughout the square. He referred to the estimated 3.5 million ethnic Hungarians who are living in neighboring countries such as Romania and Slovakia.
Hungary lost two third of its territory after World War One and again after the Second World War, when for the most part it was a close ally of Nazi Germany. Saturday’s demonstration was supported by the far right Hungarian Justice and Life Party (MIEP) which is known for its anti-Semitic and anti foreigners statements.
One onlooker, a 50-year-old man, told the French News Agency, AFP, he had been kicked on the ankle and called a "stinking Jew" after he refused to accept a banner distributed by MIEP supporters. Eye-witnesses said buildings near the demonstration were daubed with anti-Semitic graffiti.
"LIVING SPACE"
In addition the party’s leader, Istvan Csurka, warned Budapest residents that Israelis and other foreigners were threatening Hungarians’ "living space" — a term associated with Adolf Hitler, who used the word "lebensraum" to justify his racist policies.
Anti Semitism remains a sensitive issue in Hungary, as 600,000 Hungarian Jews were massacred during World War Two. In addition officials from Taiwan’s Tapei Representative Office told BosNewsLife that nationalism in Hungary was one of the reasons that made investors decide to move elsewhere.
Yet, Prime Minister Viktor Orban has refused to completely distance himself from MIEP, in an apparent attempt to attract voters. MIEP received less than the necessary five percent to enter the 386 seat Parliament during the first round of Parliamentary elections on April 7.
CHURCH LEADERS
However MIEP, which even includes some church leaders, has said its candidates will withdraw and support Fidesz during the second round of voting, on April 21.
The Foreign Relations Director of the Federation of Hungarian Jewish Communities, Erno Lazarovits, said he hopes the second round will be won by the opposition. "Of course I am happy that the MIEP is not in the Parliament, because they are the most anti-Semitic," he told BosNewsLife.
"I am expecting such a Government that (will) distance itself from the anti-Semitic xenophobia, from racism and hate of foreigners. In the last four years it was not (done) and the Government did not distance itself from such phenomena," said Lazarovits, who himself narrowly survived the Holocaust.
OPPOSITION
The opposition Hungarian Socialist Party and the Alliance of Free Democrats, who now lead in opinion polls, have agreed to cooperate during the second election sound and to form a Government.
Both parties made the accord despite their different backgrounds. While the Socialists came from the former Soviet backed Communist party, the more liberal Alliance of Free Democrats include many former dissidents. Some Free Democrats were even on death row for their role in Hungary’s 1956 revolution
against Soviet domination, which was crushed by Russian troops.
Since the collapse of Communism however, the Socialists and the Free Democrats overcame their differences and formed a pro-Western Government in 1994, which was ousted four years later. During the first round of Hungary’s Parliamentary elections last Sunday, they came out narrowly ahead of the ruling centre right Fidesz-Democratic Forum alliance of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
With nearly 42 percent of the vote, the Socialist Party won just
55,000 more votes than Mr. Orban’s alliance. The Socialists and Free Democrats have warned against bringing politics into the streets "We want to decide the ballot at the urns and want to pursue politics in Parliament," Socialist leader and former Foreign Minister Laszlo Kovacs told voters at a marketplace in northern Budapest Saturday, April 13.
