Hungarian News

Orbán and the King of Porn

• December 20, 2021
• István
• 2 Comments

The headline may sound sensational, but these are the persons one of the most important political questions of these days turns about: Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and porn mogul György Gattyán.

Orbán created soon after he won the elections in 2010 among so many other things a new electoral system, which works extremely well for the party list receiving the plurality of votes. Because the opposition parties in Hungary did not co-operate FIDESZ got in 2014 their so much desired 2/3 of the seats in parliament with meagre 43.55 % of the popular vote within Hungary and 44.87 % of all list votes. In 2018 again only a plurality voted for Orbán and he got again the supermajority in parliament. It took long, very long, for the 6 main opposition parties to bundle their forces, finally in October they united behind the winner of the primaries Péter Márki-Zay. The opposition parties that did not join this union make no or very little chances only to get into parliament through the electoral threshold of at least 5 % (for a single party, 10 and 15 % for a common party list containing 2 or more parties.)

Is that enough for Orbán not to fear? I don’t think so – and suddenly a new player arrived on the political stage. A person with a …. special reputation: György Gattyán. He is one of the richest Hungarians, who made his fortune on internet in the sex industry. A man who relocated his companies away from Hungary, who was also involved in offshore deals according to the Panama Papers. Gattyán declared on ATV that “I haven’t a really good relationship with the reigning government” – should we believe him? Indeed, he had his problems with the authorities, the tax office NAV has foreclosed his Hungarian possessions in 2016, before he won his trial against the NAV. But these days money flows generously from the NER into his direction (900 million Forint or 2 450 000 €.)

Since Márki-Zay won the primaries Gattyán gave several interviews, published “vacancies” to run for parliament on billboards, and right now declared to run with his party, and “if necessary” for PM as well. Just with the little fault that his party “Megoldás Mozgalom” (Solution Movement) is according to RTL not registered, at least not yet.

Népszava published a poll and 59 % heard about the plans of Gattyán. Obviously his campaign works for this part. But only 9 % of them take him for serious, 45 % regard it as “a rich man’s fad,” but 46 % gave no answer onto this question. Only 5 % see him entering politics by a sincere intention, 22 % suspect FIDESZ behind his move (among opposition voters 57 %, those of DK and Jobbik both 62 %, while even FIDESZ voters for 7 % believe that their own party is arranging a fake party.) The highest part of 48 % had no opinion, here FIDESZ voters are undecided at exactly the same level, only topped by undecided voters with 58 %. The huge rest of 25 % thinks that he has other reasons from being serious or working for the Orbán party (whatever that may be, entering in corruption business perhaps?), here FIDESZ voters are at the top with 37 %. Of special interest of course the question, whether one could imagine to vote for his party: Only 1 % said yes, another 3 % perhaps, 5 % said probably not, 56 % definitely not and again a huge part remains without opinion, which is not much larger than the usual share of non-voters. Based on these data he wouldn’t get enough votes to enter parliament, while he is telling that it would be easier for him than of the united opposition to archive a 2/3 supermajority in parliament (same source.)

Lord mayor Karácsony is sure that these plans were developed in the office of Antal Rogán. Could he be right and would it change something when people vote onto a party that doesn’t make a chance to get seats in parliament according to the before mentioned data?

The past has proven that there were a lot of fake parties participating in the elections of 2014 and 2018. Most remarkable was that some opposition parties wanted to run as Összefogás (Co-operation) in 2014 and this term was already communicated to the public. Just that this name was at time of decision by the FIDESZ dominated national election committee granted to a party that nobody ever had heard about. Everything the party, which was allowed to use the name Összefogás, succeeded in, was collecting public funds. So yes, it is not unlikely that the regime now invested more in a party that needs to collect some more votes.

106 of the 199 seats in parliament are determined in districts, 93 through party lists. In the districts the plurality decides about the seat. Based on the 2018 results only 45 of the districts are safe for FIDESZ in a direct competition with the united opposition, while in the most districts the FIDESZ plurality is endangered with only one competitor. With a divided opposition in 2018 the opposition took 1/4 of these battleground districts, FIDESZ 3/4. So it is absolutely in the interest of Orbán to divert as many votes from the united opposition as possible. Between 1 and 4 % voting for a fake opposition party could change the plurality in quite a number of districts. So diverting a few percent of the votes from the united opposition candidates to those of a fake party could do the trick. The same is valid on party lists, although here the damage would have a way lower impact than in districts.

There are enough voices questioning whether the votes will be counted and processed correctly or Orbán will accept the results of the elections if he doesn’t win. Creating a successful fake party would be a more elegant way to stay in power for sure.