HUNGARY'S ELECTIONS: DEBRECEN SNAPSHOT

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 BUDAPEST 000718

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

DEPT FOR EUR/NCE

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV PINR KDEM SOCI HU
SUBJECT: HUNGARY'S ELECTIONS: DEBRECEN SNAPSHOT
(C-RE6-00145)

REF: STATE 22644

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Summary
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1. (SBU) Conversations in Debrecen April 4 with governing
MSZP, junior governing coalition SZDSZ, opposition FIDESZ,
and a journalist suggested strongly that FIDESZ can be
expected to sweep Hajdu-Bihar (eastern Hungary) County's nine
individual mandate seats and turn in an equally strong party
list showing. Behind FIDESZ's likely success is:

-- the continuing popularity of Debrecen's FIDESZ Mayor Lajos
Kosa;
-- a well-functioning FIDESZ county party apparatus;
-- worry about the future of the region's economy, which is
seen to be the responsibility of the central (MSZP/SZDSZ)
government.

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Background
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2. (U) Debrecen is the county seat of Hajdu-Bihar County and
Hungary's second largest city at about 200 thousand
inhabitants. It is home to the Lajos Kossuth Scientific
University, where about 26 thousand students are currently
enrolled. Although unemployment in Debrecen, at about five
percent, is below the national average, joblessness
countywide is estimated at 8.65 percent. The county borders
Romania, and that country's improving economic performance is
viewed by Hajdu-Bihar residents with a measure of
trepidation. A four-lane highway, the M3, that would connect
Debrecen with Budapest, is slated for completion by the end
of the year (it currently extends from Budapest to Miskolc).
It is hoped locally that the M3 will boost Debrecen's economy.


3. (U) Hajdu-Bihar County is an opposition party (FIDESZ)
stronghold. In the 2002 elections, FIDESZ candidates swept
all nine of the county's individual mandate seats, and won
almost 48 percent of the party list vote. The governing MSZP
finished second with about 40 percent, while its junior
coalition partner SZDSZ polled only 3.76 percent;
surprisingly low for a county that features a prominent
university. Voter participation in 2002 was also somewhat
below the national average at just under 66 percent.

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FIDESZ Stronghold, But
One MSZP Candidate May Win
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4. (U) The lone MSZP candidate with an outside chance to endQFIDESZ's monopoly
on power in the county is veteran
politician Katalin Levai Juhasz. Levai --age 51-- is
currently President of the County Assembly and has been a
member of Parliament since 1994. She is a member of the
MSZP's National Presidium. In 2002, she lost an individual
mandate race to FIDESZ candidate Janos Halasz. Halasz
garnered 55 percent of the vote to Levai's 44. This time
around, Levai is fighting an uphill battle against FIDESZ
candidate Laszlo Taso. Taso is the Mayor of Nyiradony,
northeast of Debrecen near the Szabolc-Szatmar-Bereg county
line, and Q been a Member of Parliament since 2004.


5. (SBU) In an April 4 meeting in her spacious County
Assembly office, Levai described the chief campaign issues as
"jobs, decent salaries, and reasonable pensions" for the
county's many retirees. Her campaign against Taso to date
had been "bitter, emotional." The atmosphere, especially in
the county's smaller towns, had become so freighted that
"some are afraid to voice their opinions." As an
illustration, Levai mentioned a recent incident in the town
of Fullep. The town's Greek-Catholic priest on March 19 had
enjoined his parishioners to vote for FIDESZ. Some,
presumably MSZP members, in the congregation were so outraged
they contacted Levai, who in turn wrote a letter to the
bishop, from whom she extracted an apology. But the behavior
continues, she said. The county's Roman Catholic hierarchy
has behaved differently. It has sent letters to all of the
local priests urging that they remain out of the election
campaign. The county's Calvinists for their part have urged
their parishioners to vote, but have not overtly backed any
one party.


6. (SBU) Levai alleged that the county FIDESZ organization
had recruited "Transylvanian Hungarians" to deface or tear
down MSZP posters. Also on the prowl were "Transylvanian

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street preachers" who are, Levai alleged, more active in
politics than their Hungarian brethren. The activities of
these groups and those associated with her FIDESZ opponent
Taso had forced her to file numerous official complaints to
the electoral commission; the largest number in the county,
Levai said. Taso's FIDESZ team harasses Levai when she
attempts to campaign in Nyiradony, she alleged.


7. (SBU) Harassment aside, Levai described the race as of
April 4 as "very close." Six months ago, Taso had enjoyed a
twenty percent lead, but Levai claimed she had whittled that
to "four or five percent." FIDESZ's county organization was
worried enough that it had brought Party President Viktor
Orban to Debrecen more frequently than it had originally
planned. Still, Levai was not confident that the few day
remaining until the April 9, first round of the elections
would suffice to allow her to close the gap. She hoped that
recent apperances by MSZP Prime Minister Gyurcsany would aid
her efforts. Gyurcsany, she said, had recently appeared
before ten thousand supporters in a local stadium. She
described him as "believable and dynamic," and much more
credible than the party he represents (a telling comment,
when coming from a longterm MSZP member like Levai).


8. (SBU) Levai described her race as key to breaking the
FIDESZ stranglehold on power in the county. She traced
FIDESZ's dominance to Debrecen's FIDESZ Mayor Lajos Kosa.
"Everyone in the county comes to Debrecen for shopping," she
said, and can see the results of his work at first hand.
Among his accomplishments, she cited the city's central
square, which he had "revitalized," and Kosa's success in
turning the county's airport into a burgeoning regional hub.
Kosa, Levai said, was "a smart mayor, a good mayor," and she
was certain he would be re-elected.

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SZDSZ A Very Distant
Third Here
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9. (SBU) SZDSZ County Assembly Faction Head Istvan Gadus
April 4 gamely described his party as "the third largest in
the county," but neglected to mention by how far it was
trailing the county, and country's, top two parties. SZDSZ,
said Gadus, had only three deputies in the county assembly,
and he expected little change in his party's fortunes, given
that Debrecen was FIDESZ's "showcase city" and the county a
FIDESZ stronghold.


10. (SBU) Although Gadus had been in politics for sixteen
years and was a founding member of the party, this was his
first bid for a seat in Parliament. Gadus is balloting
against Debrecen Mayor Lajos Kosa, who is assured victory.
His MSZP opponent is a rather colorless professor of the
local agricultural university, who is expected to fare poorly
against Kosa as well. Gadus noted that the mayor of Debrecen
until 1998 had been a member of SZDSZ and it is time, he
said, "to take on (incumbent FIDESZ Mayor) Kosa." Gadus,
while acknowledging that Kosa, was genuinely popular in the
county, alleged that the Mayor's office uses perquisites,
like a city newspaper distributed free-of-charge to burnish
its image. As do SZDSZ national politicians, Gadus cited
county studies allegedly showing that 14 percent of the local
electorate were closet "liberals." The local university had
become the focal point of SZDSZ's efforts to recruit, and it
had been helped in its efforts by the GOH's SZDSZ minister of
education who had, Gadus said, granted HUF 30 - 40 billion to
the university during his tenure.


11. (SBU) A further group of "liberals," Gadus pegged their
number at 10 - 12 percent of the MSZP vote, support the MSZP.
SZDSZ's strategy in the county was to portray itself as the
only real opposition to FIDESZ in a bid to siphon away those
voters. Gadus cited "genuine differences" between his party
and the MSZP. Debrecen's SZDSZ was openly campaigning for a
smaller state administration, although it was aware that
government jobs were often the only source of employment in
some of Hajdu-Bihar County's villages. For the rest of its
campaign, Debrecen SZDSZ was taking its clues from SZDSZ's
national platform: privatized health care, lower taxes, and
a rational social safety net.


12. (SBU) SZDSZ's coalition with the MSZP had hurt his party,
Gadus thought. The ideal election outcome from his point of
view would be to have the MSZP's Gyurcsany in power and SZDSZ
in opposition. Gadus was sanguine about the eleventh-hour
decision of Minister of Economics and Gyurcsany confidante
Koka to join SZDSZ. He termed Koka the "perfect embodiment of
what SZDSZ stands for." (Koka) is "beginning to realize that

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governing is about more attending ceremonial openings and
closings," he said somewhat patronizingly. Koka had been to
Debrecen five times since the campaign had begun. "The first
time he came on his helicopter," Gadus said, cringing, and
agreed that the politics of envy was still very much alive
and well in Hungary. Gadus added parenthetically that a
Gyurcsany win would, among other things, be a "big step" in
transcending that syndrome.


13. (SBU) Gadus hoped that in the aftermath of this election
some thought would be given to election reform. He
criticized in particular the complicated system of tabulating
votes, the campaign silence period, and the current practice
of having public opinion sampling firms associated with one
or another party. Also on his radar was campaign finance.
The two major parties had spent "exorbitant sums" on their
campaigns, and money was pushing parties like his own to the
margins.

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Journalist Sees
Continued FIDESZ
Dominance
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14. (SBU) Local Hungarian Radio correspondent Kornelia Bene
was convinced April 4 that FIDESZ would repeat its 2002
performance in Hajdu-Bihar County. She credited FIDESZ Mayor
Kosa for the party's continuing invincibility. In Debrecen,
people are "living better" and the Mayor gets the credit.
Also working in Kosa's favor is his photogenic family,
especially his three children, which his campaign has made
liberal use of. The local FIDESZ strategy of taking credit
for any positive developments, while laying negative
phenomena at the feet of the MSZP-led central government
continued to pay dividends. Also important was FIDESZ's
superior county party organization. Bene noted that the
party had dispatched fourteen buses of FIDESZ supporters and
a car caravan to the party's April 2 rally in Budapest. In
all, she estimated, as many as four thousand Debrecenites may
have attended the event.


15. (SBU) Bene thought it unlikely that Levai would win her
race against Taso, but she conceded that the MSZP candidate
had an outside chance. Making her the possible exception,
she said, was Levai's access to "administrative resources" as
President of the County Assembly. Levai had also, "picked an
easier district," Bene thought.


16. (SBU) Accompanying better living standards, however, is a
palpable anxiety about the future, Bene said. No new major
companies had opened for business in the county in the last
year, and a tobacco plant, a major employer, had closed.
Hajdu-Bihar residents were watching neighboring Romania's
improving economic performance with a certain trepidation.

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FIDESZ Confident
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17. (SBU) Thirty-nine year old FIDESZ MP Robert Racz was
openly confident April 4 that his party would reprise its
2002 performance in 2006. (Racz is a graduate of Debrecen's
university and has been active in FIDESZ politics since at
least 1998. He graduated with a degree in English and
history.) Poloffs met Racz at FIDESZ campaign headquarters
which was humming with young campaign workers manning phone
banks, and regularly leaving the office with bundles of
campaign literature. Gesturing to baskets of bread, Racz
said, "we even feed our campaign workers this year." Racz
said that each potential FIDESZ voter would be contacted by
telephone and urged to vote April 9. Those phone calls, is
some cases, would be supplemented by house visits. (Racz
said he had five thousand campaign workers at his command in
the county. There are eight hundred actual party members in
Debrecen, and three-four thousand in Hajdu-Bihar County.)


18. (SBU) Racz described FIDESZ's campaign tactic in the
county as one of "listening, not talking." The party's
door-to-door campaign had begun two years ago, he said. The
information gathered had been used in drafting the party
platform and in devising its campaign strategy. The party's
extensive contact with the electorate had led it, Racz said,
to focus on the population's sense of economic well-being.
He thought that up to 80 percent of the population did not
believe itself to be palpably better off than it had been
four years earlier. And anyway, he added, if someone is
"slightly" better off than he had been, he generally
characterizes himself as poorer; "and we exploit that."

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19. (SBU) Although Hajdu-Bihar County borders Romania, the
future of ethnic Hungarians abroad would not figure in the
calculations of the electorate, Racz thought. "It's a dead
issue," he said, even allowing he was grateful the MSZP has
not held out the specter this time around of poorer ethnic
Hungarians from Romania flooding Hungary under a FIDESZ
government.


20. (SBU) Racz thought it unlikely that SZDSZ would cross the
five percent threshold to representation in Parliament.
"They were in government" for the last four years, he said,
"and are contaminated." He described Gyurcsany as only a
"semi-new" MSZP face,


21. (SBU) Racz was philosophical about the changes his party
was undergoing as Hungary moved toward a two-party system.
He agreed that FIDESZ had become more of a coalition than it
had been, even having under its wing distinguishable parties
like the Christian Democrats. Racz denied FIDESZ's core
values had been sacrificed in its transformation. The "only
core value," he said, was "opposition to having the
communists in power," which continues to this day.

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Comment
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22. (SBU) As has been the case elsewhere in Hungary, Embassy
was impressed with how well the FIDESZ county party apparatus
functions. Its well-oiled machinery, the stellar reputation
of Mayor Kosa, the lack of a county personality from another
party of similar stature to challenge him, and economic
uncertainty seem to have combined in Hajdu-Bihar County to
give the race this time around a certain sense of
inevitability. As has been the case elsewhere in Hungary,
all of the campaign issues here are ultimately economic ones,
and Mayor Kosa's success in making tangible improvements in
Debrecen seems to have persuaded voters here that the party
could replicate that feat nationally, if elected.


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