HUNGARY'S ELECTIONS: PROMISING CAKE TO PENSIONERS

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 BUDAPEST 000698 SIPDIS SENSITIVE SIPDIS STATE FOR EUR/NCE MICHELLE LABONTE E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV KDEM SOCI HU SUBJECT: HUNGARY'S ELECTIONS: PROMISING CAKE TO PENSIONERS (C-RE6-00145) REF: STATE 22644 -------------- Summary -------------- ¶1. (U) This cable examines the likely role of pensioners in this spring's elections, and the issues most likely to unite them. Pensioners are a large and growing segment of Hungary's voting population. As elsewhere, they turn out at the polls more regularly than younger voters. Today's pensioners care about pension security; purchasing power, and targeted price supports for pharmaceuticals, transportation and other services. The more critical, longer-term issues of raising the retirement age and strengthening the role of private retirement accounts have not entered into the campaign. -------------- Actuarial Realities -------------- ¶2. (U) Hungarian pensioners are the largest segment of the electorate -- and an expanding one. In 2004, the average Hungarian couple had just 1.28 children. The average age of a Hungarian is 47 years old and rising. A recent overview of the pensions issue by center-right news daily Magyar Nemzet quotes insurance-industry experts as saying that in 1990, contributions by 5.4 million workers were financing the pensions of 2.5 million retirees. The two groups are expected to be equal in size around 2010, while the 1990 proportion should be reversed by 2020. According the Central Statistical Office, in 2005 there were 3,036,000 pensioners and 3.9 million workers. However, in January 2006, Corvinus University sociology professor Tamas Bartus claimed to Emboffs that pensioners already outnumbered workers. Sixteen percent of Hungary's population today is over 65 years old, recalls Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany in his 2005 book, Mid-Journey. ¶3. (U) While figures vary, Hungary's population is indeed aging, and policymakers will not long be able to ignore that fact. Indeed, Hungary introduced optional private retirement plans to supplement state pensions as early as 1977. Nonetheless, fiscal hawks charge that incentives to participate in such plans are too weak, even while acknowledging that today's workers fail to use current opportunities to the fullest. Today's pensioners eschew the risk involved in personal accounts, preferring a guaranteed state pension. Despite occasional admonishments by officials to invest in such private accounts, Hungarian savings rates remain low. ¶4. (SBU) The current government has left the overall pension system essentially unchanged over its past four years in office. In reviewing its achievements, MSZP's pensioner-targeted campaign literature has focused on the gradual introduction of a "thirteenth-month" pension payment over the current term. That same literature claims a 30-percent rise in pensioner purchasing power between 2001 and 2006, and successive pension increases of 13.1 percent, 9.6 percent and 8.4 percent in 2003, 2004 and 2005, respectively. According to this view, the lot of pensioners has been steadily improving, and the party hopes they will remember that at the ballot box. ¶5. (U) However, perceptions by retirees themselves may differ. For many pensioners, the growing gap between the average pension and the average working income is a source of anxiety. Under the current "Swiss-indexation" method currently used to recalculate pensions annually, cost-of-living increases equal only half the rate of inflation. Moreover, as working Hungarians scramble to match EU-15 living standards, today's state pensions are looking increasingly inadequate as a basis for future financial security. For example, one insurance company calculates that those who retire after January 1, 2013 with an average monthly income of HUF 150,000 (USD 714) can expect to receive a monthly state pension of some HUF 73,000 (USD 348). ("Do you know how little that is in Euros?" FIDESZ pensioner group president Dr. Pal Aszodi asked Emboffs.) Many others live below that level today. According to National Retirees Representative Agency (Nyugdijasok Orszagos Kepviselet) president Ervin Mihalovits, there are some 800,000 pensioners living on HUF 50,000 to 60,000/month (USD 238 to 286/month) and an additional 20,000 living on a scant HUF 30,000/month (USD 143). Hungarian retirees also receive transportation and other subsidies. BUDAPEST 00000698 002 OF 003 ¶6. (U) Beyond the perceptions, Hungary's retirement system is ill-prepared to service an aging population. Frequent tinkering by successive governments over the past twenty years has failed to address larger issues affecting the retirement system. Risk-averse Hungarians remain reluctant to invest in personal retirement accounts, suggesting that incentives may need beefing up. The retirement age (currently 62 for both men and women) is probably unsustainable, given Hungary's aging population. Some systemic inequities have resulted from periodic changes in the method of calculating pensions: for example, as Mihalovits explained to Emboffs, those who retired prior to 1989 did so on more disadvantaged terms than those who stopped working later, and former collective-farm employees have especially pathetic pensions. Moreover, the common practice of underreporting one's earned income leaves today's system underfunded and tomorrow's retirees shortchanged, since future pensions are calculated based on reported income. In his book (Mid-Journey),the current PM has proposed establishing a higher universal minimal monthly state pension, perhaps of HUF 30,000 (USD 143),with additional benefits contingent on private savings plans. (Note: Since 2004, the current minimum pension has been HUF 23,200, or USD 110.) However, Gyurcsany also put the cost of such systemic reform at HUF 1 trillion (USD 4.76 billion), and thus advocates gradual implementation. Unsurprisingly, no such proposal has appeared in his campaign speeches. -------------- Campaign Promises: More Cake and Candles -------------- ¶7. (U) So far, Hungary's political class has done little to retool the system, offering band-aids in campaign season and less afterwards. In the 2002 campaign, MSZP promised a "thirteenth-month" pension, and currently FIDESZ is promising a fourteenth month on top of that. (When asked, neither Mihalovits nor Somsak thought such promises alone would sway older voters.) Also in the current campaign, PM Gyurcsany (MSZP) has pledged (1) to lower the age for free train and bus travel from 65 to 62, (2) to allow early retirement to those aged 55 and older who have been out of work for two years, and (3) to offer special "one-off" bonus payments of HUF 90,000, 95,000 and 100,000 (USD 429, 452 and 476) to retirees on their ninetieth, ninety-fifth and one-hundredth birthdays, respectively. (Note: Under socialism, the state presented one-hundred-year-olds with a congratulatory birthday cake.) His rival Viktor Orban (FIDESZ) has promised free medications to those over 65. ¶8. (U) Under MSZP's 100 Steps program, additional, piecemeal changes have been promised by 2010, e.g., a 50-percent increase in widows' benefits, in two steps; and selective increases to disability pensions established since 1991. Other changes may do a better job of minimizing the inequalities between pensions for those who retired in certain periods. For example, in 2007 MSZP promises to raise pensions for those who retired prior to December 1987 (for men by three percent, for women by five percent). In 2008, pensions for those who retired between 1991 and 1996 would increase by four percent, since they were represent a lower proportion of income than pensions calculated in different periods. Also in 2008, the same pensions would rise by 0.5 percent per year worked in excess of 29 years, up to a maximum of ten percent. In 2009, all pensions for those who retired between 1988 and 1990 would rise by two percent. ¶9. (U) In addition to phasing in a fourteenth-month pension over four years, FIDESZ has pledged to provide those over age 60 with certain medications free of charge, such as cancer drugs, with a small per-package copayment; grocery vouchers for the elderly; 100-percent pensions for women who have worked for 40 years; a ten-percent reduction in electricity prices from July 1, 2006; a one-third price reduction in heating costs; an annual cap on price increases for heating gas, public-transportation costs and pharmaceuticals in line with inflation; and a strengthened consumer-protection office. -------------- The Pensioner Vote -------------- ¶10. (U) FIDESZ's promises notwithstanding, it is reasonable to expect a plurality of retirement-age voters to support MSZP this time, as indicated by past election results and current polling. In 2002, older voters displayed a preference for parties on the left, and according to an analysis by Corvinus University political scientists, in 2002 50 percent of voters cast ballots for MSZP, 40 percent for BUDAPEST 00000698 003 OF 003 FIDESZ and 4 percent for SZDSZ. At a March 23 pollster roundtable, Gallup Hungary's Robert Manchin stated that while FIDESZ leads among voters under age 45, MSZP is ahead with the 65-plus crowd -- and the race is a dead heat among voters between those two age groups. Also in March, the FIDESZ-friendly Szazadveg Foundation reported that 36 percent of all respondents believed a Gyurcsany-led government would do more to improve the social conditions of pensioners, against 23 percent who thought an Orban government would do better. Although Dr. Aszodi complained to Emboffs that successive governments have shown partisanship in funding pensioner advocacy groups, he also insisted that such groups needed such support to function -- and his own party preference is clear, as he is running on a FIDESZ party list in Baranya County. (Note: At the same time, Aszodi partipates in the allegedly MSZP-friendly government advisory group chaired by Mihalovits.) Yet such alleged partisanship is unlikely to affect the way the pensioner vote splits. In February, MSZP Party Vice President Imre Szekeres told Embassy that he thought MSZP would do well with pensioners this time as well, citing a reasonably-priced "food basket," affordable housing, low inflation, and a program that provided 500,000 of Hungary's estimated three million pensioners with cost-free prescription drugs as reasons to count on pensioners' support. -------------- Comment: Are the Pensioners a Voting Bloc? -------------- ¶11. (SBU) No. That said, pensioners tend to vote for the MSZP more than for FIDESZ, and a strong turnout by retirees could tip the balance in MSZP's favor while slightly undercutting SZDSZ. Although each major party appeals directly to pensioners, the pensioners themselves have shown limited organizational mettle, perhaps impeded by rising transportation costs and low rates of Internet use: National advocacy groups remain divided along party lines, and the so-called Pensioners Party is unlikely to approach, let alone pass the five-percent threshold to entering Parliament. ¶12. (SBU) Many Hungarian pensioners live on meager incomes, and their anxiety about rising costs is real. An MSZP victory, with or without SZDSZ, may result in a somewhat more systematic effort to fix the current system's inequities, but the Swiss-indexation system will stay, and average pensions will remain modest. FIDESZ's stated platform consists entirely of palliatives. Either major party's promises, if fulfilled, will give pensioners some relief. However, most of this campaign's promises to pensioners come down to more birthday cake. ¶13. (U) Visit U.S. Embassy Budapest's classified website: www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/budapest/index.cfm. WALKER