HUNGARY'S PARLIAMENT: STRUCTURAL AND DEMOGRAPHIC

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 BUDAPEST 001009 SIPDIS SIPDIS DEPARTMENT FOR EUR/NCE MICHELLE LABONTE E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV KDEM SOCI PINR HU SUBJECT: HUNGARY'S PARLIAMENT: STRUCTURAL AND DEMOGRAPHIC FACTS TO KNOW (C-RE6-00145) REF: A. STATE 22644 ¶B. BUDAPEST 00138 -------------- Summary -------------- ¶1. (U) Some three weeks since the second round of Hungary's national elections, Parliament convenes its first plenary session of the term on May 16. President Solyom has invited MSZP and SZDSZ to form the next government, while opposition FIDESZ and MDF remain divided. This session will likely see some realignment of forces among the opposition, as the Christian Democrats form a separate faction (caucus) and MDF stakes out its own place on the right apart from FIDESZ. This Parliament is characterized by more incumbents, older MPs, a slight increase in the number of women, and the erosion of support for FIDESZ since 2002 in party strongholds. -------------- Parliament Structure -------------- ¶2. (U) In the April parliamentary elections, voters delivered mandates to four parties: the Hungarian Socialist Party or MSZP (186),the Alliance of Young Democrats and Christian Democratic People's Party or FIDESZ-KDNP (164),the Hungarian Democratic Forum or MDF (11),and the Alliance of Free Democrats or SZDSZ (18). One independent and six joint MSZP-SZDSZ candidates also won seats. Press reports and recent Embassy meetings with party officials confirm that 23 KDNP members plan to break away from FIDESZ to form an independent faction. ¶3. (U) The Constitution, as amended in 1989, defines Hungary as a unicameral, parliamentary republic. The Parliament consists of 386 members. Members of the Parliament (MPs) are elected for four years, and are to be convened by the President of the Republic within one month after the elections. ¶4. (U) Officers of the Parliament include the Speaker of the Parliament, whose main tasks include convening parliamentary sessions and directing the work of Parliament; and five Deputy Speakers, charged with chairing the plenary sessions and substituting for the Speaker in her absence. Recently, FIDESZ has sought to prevent MDF from winning a vice-speaker slot by calling for an overall reduction in the number of vice speakers. The vice speakers and party-faction (caucus) leaders make up the House Committee of the Parliament, which guides the parliamentary agenda. To date, three parties have indicated their choices for faction leader: MSZP (Ildiko Lendvai),SZDSZ (Gabor Kuncze) and MDF (Karoly Herenyi). Twenty-five standing committees and temporary committees assist the work of the Parliament, though the coalition government has vowed to decrease this number to as few as fifteen. However, the parties have not yet reached agreement on the number of committees. Resolving that issue will likely delay the date of the legislature's second plenary session until the end of May. -------------- Party Background -------------- ¶5. (U) MSZP was constituted from the Hungarian Socialist Worker's Party, Hungary's former communist party. Scoring a mere 8.5 percent in the 1990 elections, MSZP received an overwhelming majority four years later, when it became a governing party for the first time. After four years in opposition from 1998 to 2002, MSZP then returned to power, forming a coalition with the liberal SZDSZ party. Peter Medgyessy, the party's PM candidate in 2002, was not a party member, In September 2004, Medgyessy lost his position and Ferenc Gyurcsany emerged as the new PM over the objections of the party's "old wing." Having now won reelection, MSZP is the first party in the history of democratic Hungary to win two consecutive general elections. Although the race was a tight one, the party's victory may signal that it has largely shed its negative communist stigma. ¶6. (U) SZDSZ is a small, liberal party that grew out of an opposition organization created in the late 1980s. In the 1990 and 1994 elections, SZDSZ finished second. Between 1994 and 1998, it was the junior governing party in a coalition with MSZP. With its popularity declining substantially, SZDSZ's representation in Parliament dwindled to just 24 MPs following the 1998 electoral loss to FIDESZ. In 2002, as in 2006, SZDSZ narrowly surpassed the 5 percent threshold required to obtain seats in Parliament. Traditionally, BUDAPEST 00001009 002 OF 002 SZDSZ's support base is urban and centered in Budapest. ¶7. (U) MDF, currently the junior opposition party, led Hungary's first democratically-elected administration between 1990 and 1994. Its conservative foundations date to the time of the system change, although its popularity has declined considerably since the mid 1990s. As FIDESZ stepped to the forefront of the right wing, MDF has struggled to reach the five-percent mark in recent elections. Between 1998 and 2002, it governed in coalition with FIDESZ. After a bitter campaign in 2006, in which it vied openly with its former ally FIDESZ for votes, the MDF sees its return to Parliament as a major victory, and has announced plans to reform the party and establish a "truly" conservative entity with a broad support base on the right. ¶8. (U) FIDESZ, created in the late 1980s as an opposition party, is today essentially a populist party, although it styles itself a conservative one. Initially a catalyst for the system change, FIDESZ gradually shifted from the liberal side of the spectrum to the conservative in the mid-1990s, embracing the causes of ethnic Hungarians and the traditional churches. Between 1998 and 2002, FIDESZ was the senior governing party. The party leadership has promised to "keep fighting" to uphold the interests of Hungarian conservatives though the 2006 defeat is the second for the party in as many elections. -------------- Demographic Changes -------------- ¶9. (U) More incumbents won in the 2006 elections than in previous contests, with 267 MPs returning to Parliament. Moreover, according to Hungarian Election Commission statistics, the new Parliament is older than the previous one: more than half of MPs are over 50 years of age, 25 between the age of 60 and 70, and ten over 70 years old (including two over 80). The largest group is of 163 MPs who are between 50 and 60 years old. Only 60 MPs are under 40 years old, with the youngest being MSZP's Laszlo Nagy, at 23 years of age. ¶10. (U) There are three more women in the new Parliament, bringing the total to 39, up from 36. Twenty-four are from the MSZP, two are SZDSZ, twelve are from FIDESZ and one (party president Ibolya David) represents the MDF. ¶11. (U) Sixty-seven MPs in the new parliament are mayors as well, many of whom will stand for re-election in the local elections in November. -------------- Geographic Shifts -------------- ¶12. (U) In a remarkable advance over their 78 individual wins in 2002, the socialist MSZP party won 98 individual constituencies, in addition to six joint constituencies with the SZDSZ. As in the 2002 contest, the MSZP-SZDSZ coalition won 28 out of 32 constituencies in Budapest. Also as in 2002, FIDESZ won four traditionally conservative districts in Buda. (Note: The 186 figure for MSZP in paragraph two includes individual-constituency seats, county party-list and national party-list seats. The total number of a party's seats in Parliament is determined by wins in individual constituenciess and seat distributions from party lists; for details, please see reftel B.) ¶13. (U) The MSZP performed better in rural areas than four years ago. While the FIDESZ dominance in Hungary's western counties continued, the MSZP knocked out FIDESZ candidates in northeastern Hungary's Szabolcs-Szatmar-Bereg County. In a significant shift, FIDESZ only managed to win three of that county's ten districts, down from eight in 2002. In Hajdu-Bihar County, another FIDESZ stronghold, the MSZP won three of the nine constituencies, where they had won none in ¶2002. The coalition also dominated Bekes County in the southeastern corner of Hungary, where the four-to-three FIDESZ win in 2002 was followed by a five-to-two victory for MSZP in 2006. ¶14. (U) Visit Embassy Budapest's classified website: www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/budapest/index.cfm WALKER