Voter surveys suggest that nearly two-thirds of the new Hungarian government’s own voters are dissatisfied with the lack of civic engagement in key decisions.
Voter surveys suggest that nearly two-thirds of the new Hungarian government’s own voters are dissatisfied with the lack of civic engagement in key decisions.
Hungarian PM Péter Magyar angered his voters by unilaterally nominating, then failing to secure a new president of the republic, a move described by analysts as the first major political misstep of the new pro-EU government.
According to two separate polls published recently by firms sympathetic to the government, support for the ruling Tisza party has decreased for the first time since the April election (down 4%), while confidence in PM Magyar’s suitability is down by 10% (from 72% to 62%).
Pollsters say the decline is mostly due to Magyar’s failure to convince Judit Polgár, an internationally renowned chess grandmaster, to serve as the country’s next president after he forcibly and unconstitutionally removed former President Tamás Sulyok.
After that, Magyar was rejected by his second pick, Széchenyi-prize-winning historian Ignác Romsics, as well.
Even before the rejections, the nomination process itself had drawn backlash from voters who were promised more involvement in how key decisions are made and, in particular, that the new president would be directly elected. In contrast, reports indicate that Magyar not only neglected to hold proper public consultation, but didn’t even consult with most of his own party or the nominees themselves.
Unsurprisingly, the polls found that over two-thirds of Hungarians—including 60% of Tisza voters—are dissatisfied with the lack of civic engagement, and that only 33% considered Judit Polgár a suitable candidate.
“The ‘end of the honeymoon’ is now supported by data,” wrote liberal-leaning analyst Gábor Török, while close-to-the-Socialist party pollster András Pulai noted that the botched nomination of Polgár was “the first significant unforced political error of the Tisza government,” leading to the conservative opposition Fidesz finally beginning to grow in the polls.
With the 30-day constitutional deadline to choose Sulyok’s successor fast approaching, the presidential nomination could turn into the first real test of governing capabilities for Magyar.
So far, the PM mostly spent his time insulting and berating the opposition in Parliament when he wasn’t busy dismantling the rule of law through the infamous 17th constitutional amendment, which forcibly removed several high-level public dignitaries, banned half of the opposition from running ever again, and established a communist-style criminal investigative agency that’s completely unaccountable to the judicial system.
Tamás Orbán is a political journalist for europeanconservative.com, based in Brussels. Born in Transylvania, he studied history and international relations in Kolozsvár, and worked for several political research institutes in Budapest. His interests include current affairs, social movements, geopolitics, and Central European security. On Twitter, he is @TamasOrbanEC.
