HUNGARY'S ELECTIONS: THAT'S ZALA, FOLKS

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 BUDAPEST 000541

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

STATE PASS EUR/NCE MICHELLE LABONTE

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: KDEM PGOV PHUM SOCI HU
SUBJECT: HUNGARY'S ELECTIONS: THAT'S ZALA, FOLKS
(C-RE6-00145)

REF: STATE 22644

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Summary
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1. (U) On a March 9 trip to Nagykanizsa, Zala County, most
contacts described the local mood as tenuous and uncertain.
With the election one month away, Emboffs visited this small
city of 60,000 to meet with a range of local figures: a
business executive, a representative from the Roma minority
self government, an educator, a Lutheran pastor and a FIDESZ
MP. This cable continues Embassy's pre-election coverage
from the provinces in the run-up to the April contest. See
also septel for a report from Somogy County, also in the
country's southwest.

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Background
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2. (U) Zala County is not rich in votes: among Hungary's 8.1
million currently-registered voters, only 239,573 live here
(2002 figure). Still, 2002 turnout was both robust and in
keeping with the national average, with 70.74 percent of
registered voters casting a ballot in the first round. A
mere five of the country's 176 individual-constituency voting
districts and five party-list constituencies are located in
Zala County: Nagykanizsa, Zalaegerszeg, Keszthely on Lake
Balaton, Lenti on the Slovene border, and Zalaszentgrot.
(Note: In Hungary's election system, parliamentary
candidates may run head-to-head against each other in
individual constituencies; run on a party's county list, or
on a party's national list. Together, the 176 individual
constituencies, the 210 party-list constituencies in the
counties and the 58 national party-list slots return 376
members to Hungary's rather oversized national parliament.
In Zala County, there will be ten races.) In the 2002
parliamentary elections, MSZP candidate Istvan Gondor won in
Nagykanizsa's individual constituency with 42.12 percent of
the vote, besting joint FIDESZ-MDF candidate Peter
Cseresnyes's 36.61 percent. (Even so, Cseresnyes entered
Parliament on FIDESZ's county-wide party list.) Also in the
2002 race, SZDSZ polled at a healthy 10.09 percent, while the
far-right Truth and Life Party (MIEP) received a respectable
7.88 percent. Of the county's ten parliamentary seats,
FIDESZ won six (three individual constituencies and three
party-list),aided by MDF's one (an individual constituency;
and MSZP took three (the individual constituency in
Nagykanisza and two party-list slots). MSZP and SZDSZ also
control the mayor's office and the city council in the sleepy
county seat of Nagykanizsa.

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DKG-East: A Local Employer
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3. (U) While the county's largest private-sector employer is
General Electric Lighting Hungary, located next to the
industrial park, DKG-East Oil and Gas Industry Equipment
Manufactory is a sizeable employer in its own right -- and
one with local roots. DKG commercial director Jozsef Bogar
described the enterprise to Emboffs as healthy and
forward-looking. The company now exports some 80 percent of
its products, mainly to western Europe. Compared to
socialist times, when the company employed about 1,800
workers, today it had jobs for 500 people: 350 blue-collar
and 150 white-collar. The company tended to look elsewhere
for engineers and managers with the requisite skills, said
Bogar, while local institutes were largely able to meet
DKG-East's needs for skilled labor -- although there was a
need for more robust training in computer skills and
foreign-languages. (Note: There is no university in Zala
County. Only 45.9 percent of the local population has
completed high school.) Within the last few days, Russian
oil giant Gazprom had sold off its last remaining shares in
the company as domestic investors picked up the shortfall.


4. (U) The commercial director expressed confidence in access
to future contracts regardless of which party won in April.
"Not many companies make what we make," he explained. Bogar
saw future opportunities for both the company and the county
in (1) the proposed extension of the M7 highway from its
current terminus on the south shore of Lake Balaton to the
Slovene border, (2) Hungary's possible future at the nexus of
a pipeline system serving the Balkans, and possibly (3) the
expansion of the local industrial park. On policy questions,
the commercial director gave his personal opinion that
FIDESZ's campaign promise to lower employer social-security

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contributions from 29 to 19 percent was not feasible, however
convenient business might find it. Bogar added that, as an
exporter, DKG benefited from a weaker forint. As for the
future, our host was encouraging his own children's interest
in banking and economics ("they can make money there"),along
with foreign languages, although he could muster only
forbearance for his youngest child's penchant for Latin.

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Minority Report: Nagykanizsa's Roma
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5. (U) Opportunities were fewer, however, for the Roma in
Nagykanizsa, who form some seven percent or more of the
population. Like the many other Roma minority
self-governments (MSGs) nationwide, Nagykanizsa's faces an
uphill battle in representing the community's interests.
Nonetheless, this MSG is more effective than most. In the
Office of the Prime Minister, State Secretary for Roma
Affairs Laszlo Teleki is a favorite son to Nagykanizsa's
Roma. Teleki retains his local position as MSG president,
which helps to attract foreign investment and other support,
according to MSG vice-president Mrs. Istvan Varadi. Varadi
detailed for Emboffs a range of constructive joint programs
with the city council, including (1) the use of educational
materials on Roma concerns in local schools, and (2) MSG
liaison work between the Roma community and local police.
Mrs. Varadi also showed Emboffs a 2001 Dutch-sponsored study
of several Hungarian Roma communities, which found that 61.3
percent of Nagykanizsa's Roma voted "regularly," and an
additional 18 percent did so "occasionally." (Note: By
comparison, across the five Roma communities surveyed, the
average proportion of self-described regular voters was 52
percent. Popular belief has it that Roma generally do not
vote, although the study cites local notary records that
confirm otherwise.) Today, Varadi described the key concerns
of Roma in Nagykanizsa as educational access and low wages,
adding that the Roma's situation in her locality is better
than it is nationally. (Note: City-wide, 93.2 percent of
Nagykanizsa residents have completed eight grades of
schooling; among Roma, the figure is 44.2 percent. With
lower skills come lower wages.) Segregation remains a
reality, said Varadi, the result of both new housing programs
for the poor and the legacy of the 1970s and 1980s. When
asked whether politicians were courting the Roma vote in the
current campaign, the vice-president replied somewhat
dismissively, "oh yes, they come around every four years."
(Comment: Such a profile suggests that Nagykanizsa's Roma
voters will focus exclusively on local concerns at the ballot
box.)

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A Voice from the Right: Values, Emotions
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6. (U) A meeting with Laszlo Balogh, vice-principal of the
Lajos Batthyany Gymnasium, turned unexpectedly into a
discussion of the dual-citizenship issue. (Note: Having
supported the December 2004 dual-citizenship referendum,
FIDESZ has quietly moved Trianon legacy issues to the back
burner.) Born in Uzhgorod --once in Hungary, then
Czechoslovakia, then Hungary again and today in Ukraine--
Balogh recalled his initial sense of inferiority as a
Hungarian from abroad, although he was now "proud" to be a
Nagykanizsan. Among colleagues and friends, he stated that
he felt it "out of place" to raise the issue of Hungarians
abroad, and found locals unreceptive to the topic. "People
care more about what kind of car they drive," he sighed.
"There's no theater here" or other cultural scene. (Comment:
Balogh's experience seems to confirm that legacy issues
retain little relevance for most voters.) Even so, Balogh
expressed dissatisfaction with the current government's
"national visa" for ethnic Hungarians, introduced in January

2006. (Note: Technically, the national visa is for those
interested in Hungarian culture.) Instead, he insisted, the
only way to embrace the wider ethnic Hungarian community was
through some form of dual "citizenship," although such
citizenship need not involve voting or paying taxes.


7. (U) Asked what issues did concern families in Nagykanizsa,
Balogh pointed to "unemployment." When Emboffs noted that
the official local unemployment rate of 6.52 percent (October
2005 figure) was below the national average and compared
favorably with rates in neighboring countries, our host
described the sense of "uncertainty" that had persisted since
the closures of the local glass and furniture factories, with
the local industrial park opening only around 2000. As an
educator and a supporter of the right, Balogh repeatedly
expressed his dislike for SZDSZ Education Minister Balint

BUDAPEST 00000541 003 OF 004


Magyar, arguing that a "five-percent" party should not be
made responsible for the education of "100 percent" of
citizens. At the meeting's close, he identified himself as a
Calvinist and a supporter of the Gideon Society. (Comment:
Balogh's argumentation --on dual citizenship, unemployment,
and the liberal SZDSZ party-- is visceral rather than
rationalist. As post has reported previously, FIDESZ-allied
KDNP has vigorously attacked SZDSZ on "values" issues.)

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Cleric: A Dwindling Flock
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8. (U) Lutheran pastors David Deme and Katalin
Deme-Smideliusz, a married couple, represent the modest
parish of Nagykanizsa-Szepetneki. Its members tend to be
older, there are few baptisms, and the congregation is
steadily dwindling. The pair characterized Nagykanizsa's
economic transition as "slower" and less dramatic than
Budapest's. As advertisements fed "desire" under the new
economic order, said Deme, pocketbooks could not keep pace.
People were burdened by a sense of "uncertainty," he added,
stemming from the issues of job security and low pay. (Note:
According to official figures, average monthly wages for
Zala County's manual laborers and white-collar workers are
HUF 93,329 (USD 444) and HUF 177,217 (USD 844),respectively.
These figures do not include unreported income.) Yet the
situation today is "much better" than in the 1950s, he
emphasized. (Note: A hardline Stalinist, Hungarian
communist prime minister Matyas Rakosi brought heavy
industrialization, show trials and political repression to
Hungary in the 1950s.) "People's way of thinking can't
change in 10 or 15 years," he continued. It will require "at
least" one or two generations for people to be "more open to
each other." Asked about Nagykanizsa's Roma community,
however, Deme eschewed discrimination but argued that Roma
should at least keep their houses in order. They needed to
learn skills such as languages, and apply themselves in
school, he added. He allowed that churches could contribute
to the Roma's social integration by staging "conferences."
For Zala overall, the way forward, said Deme, lay through
greater regional cooperation. Deme-Smideliusz candidly
expressed her support for FIDESZ as the party that best
represented her values, and she actively admonished others to
vote accordingly. She added that the local FIDESZ party
organization had sought her husband's support in a previous
campaign, but he had declined.

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FIDESZ MP Sees Insecurity Locally, Nationally, Bilaterally
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9. (SBU) Local FIDESZ MP Peter Cseresnyes, who doubles as the
head of the minority FIDESZ-MDF-MKDSZ faction on the city
council, also pointed to "unemployment" as an important voter
concern in Zala County, adding that take-home pay was low and
past job losses had led to "nervousness" among workers. Like
DKG-East commercial director Laszlo Bogar (see paragraphs 3
and 4 above),saw the situation as unfavorable for small- and
medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). He expressed regret over
the FIDESZ-MDF split on the national level, saying he thought
it "unnatural," given that MDF was also a right-wing party.
There was no such split on the local level, he told Emboffs.
He categorically excluded any possibility of cooperation with
either MIEP or Jobbik, both far-right parties. On foreign
policy, Cseresnyes described himself to Emboffs as pro-U.S.,
although "others" in the party were less so. The U.S. was a
close ally, he explained, and while it was a key FIDESZ
position to support that alliance, "Hungarian interests
should also be upheld, and we hope the U.S. can accept that."
The U.S. "listened to the wrong people sometimes" in its
consultations with Hungary, he charged, and
"misunderstandings" had resulted from "business deals."
(Comment: Cseresnyes appears to be referring to then-PM
Orban's 2001 decision to lease Gripen fighters.) (Note:
Cseresnyes is a first-time MP in the current Parliament,
serving as a rank-and-file member of the Youth and Sports
Committee. As an MP, he has also turned his attention to the
problem of drug use.)

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Comment
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10. (SBU) The prevailing malaise in Zala County is probably
most characteristic of Hungary's older workers displaced by
factory closures. Low rates of secondary education, combined
with systemic factors such as the regulatory regime, labor
practices, undercapitalization for SMEs, and other, mutually

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intensifying problems may also contribute to that mood.
Whatever local and national statistics say, "unemployment"
will be a concern in this election, as confirmed by a recent
Eurobarometer poll. As elsewhere in Hungary and the region,
most citizens are wary of polarized discussions on politics,
partly a legacy of communism. Although a recent Tarki study
found that most Hungarians were, in fact, living better than
four years ago, prosperity is still around the corner from
most in insular Nagykanizsa.


11. (U) Visit U.S. Embassy Budapest's classified website:
www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/budapest/index.cfm
REEKER