HUNGARY'S ELECTIONS: ANALYST SEES CHIEF OPPOSITION

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 BUDAPEST 000741

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DEPT FOR EUR/NCE

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV KDEM PINR SOCI HU
SUBJECT: HUNGARY'S ELECTIONS: ANALYST SEES CHIEF OPPOSITION
PARTY AS UNLIKELY TO WIN ELECTION (C-RE6-00145)

REF: A. STATE 22644


B. BUDAPEST 733

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Summary
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1. (SBU) Policy research institute "Political Capital"
Director Krisztian Szabados offered April 10 some thoughts on
the April 9 first round of the elections and what they
portend for round two on April 23:

-- the three round-one winners were the governing MSZP with
more absolute votes than FIDESZ, its junior coalition partner
SZDSZ, which did better than expected, and the junior
opposition party MDF, which surprised everyone by polling
more than five percent to remain in Parliament;

-- MDF, whose campaign "Political Capital" had managed, would
not agree to cooperate with FIDESZ;

-- FIDESZ's campaign had been technically well run, but
poorly conceived. Its U.S. campaign managers had misjudged
the nature of the Hungarian electorate;

-- MSZP had both managed to provide critical support to its
coalition partner SZDSZ and, unlike in 2002, alone collect
more votes that FIDESZ. With the first round, Prime Minister
Gyurcsany had consolidated his hold on the party and "put an
end to the Kadar era," i.e., the popular expectation that the
government will meet all of its population's needs;

-- A victory April 23 would give the MSZP a "mandate" to
introduce austerity measures.

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FIDESZ Facing Uphill Battle
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2. (SBU) Policy research institute "Political Capital"
Director Krisztian Szabados April 10 offered his thoughts on
the results of the April 9, first round of Hungary's
parliamentary elections. (Note: The April 9 contest saw the
governing MSZP-SZDSZ coalition more than hold its own --ref
b-- against chief opposition party FIDESZ, which now faces an
uphill battle to unseat Prime Minister Gyurcsany and his
team. After being written off by polling companies and
observers here, the junior opposition party MDF clawed its
way back into Parliament, while junior governing coalition
party SZDSZ also crossed the five percent threshold to
another four years on Hungary's political center stage.)

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MDF Returns to the Fray
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3. (SBU) Szabados saw "three winners" of the April 9 first
round:

-- MSZP which, unlike in 2002, this time had alone received
more votes than FIDESZ;
-- SZDSZ which, to the surprise of all, had won a solid 6.5
percent of the popular vote;
-- MDF, which against odds had returned to Parliament.

Szabados noted as a footnote that this election round had
seen significantly fewer "lost votes," i.e., votes cast for
parties that did not make it into Parliament, than in 2002:
3 percent on April 9 vice 11 percent four years ago.


4. (SBU) Szabados, whose "Political Capital" had designed
MDF's ultimately successful campaign, described the party as
deriving its support in this election equally from left and
right. This meant, he said, that even if MDF ultimately
decided to throw its support to FIDESZ, much of its
electorate would not follow. (Note: although Szabados
claimed he had "research" to prove his contention, it seems
unlikely that a significant number of left voters would
support the conservative MDF. When approached after his
presentation, Szabados contended that those "left" voters who
had supported MDF did so out of a disinterested desire to see
a legitimate right-wing party well established in Hungary.
This seems counterintuitive.) Later in his presentation,
Szabados categorically excluded the possibility of a
FIDESZ-MDF compact. MDF President Ibolya David had told him
April 10 that she would not cut a deal with FIDESZ, "even if
they offered me the UN."

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FIDESZ's Strategy, Mistakes
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5. (SBU) Szabados predicted that FIDESZ would use the time
between rounds of the election --the second round will occur
April 23-- to stoke the emotions of the electorate, run a
strongly negative campaign, and allege electoral fraud, as it
did in 2002. He expected MSZP to keep the pressure on FIDESZ
this time around, however, and he pointed to the early
evening April 10 MSZP rally in downtown Budapest as proof.
(It has been alleged that MSZP had been too passive in
similar circumstances in 2002.) Szabados also claimed that
the FIDESZ cadres were exhausted. He pointed to FIDESZ
candidate and campaign manager Antal Rogan and spokesman
Peter Szijjarto, whose were visibly fatigued when shown on
television late April 9, as examples.


6. (SBU) Szabados laid much of the blame for FIDESZ's failure
at the feet of its American campaign advisers, whom he
described as "stupid" and "detached from reality." In his
telling, FIDESZ had adopted a campaign strategy similar to
that used by the Polish Law and Justice Party and the U.S.
Republican Party; but the success of both strategies was
contingent on the existence of a religious right, and
"Hungary is not a religious country." Later in his
presentation, noting that Hungary is, however, a "macho"
country, Szabados contended that Prime Minister Gyurcsany had
"humiliated" Orban in their April 5 debate. He recalled that
Orban had spent much of that contest staring into the camera,
instead of confronting Gyurcsany directly. That failure to
become combative with Gyurcsany had cost Orban the vote of
some of Hungary's male voters, Szabados thought. Szabados
believed that FIDESZ's earlier efforts to court voters from
the left had been similarly unsuccessful. "(FIDESZ President
Viktor) Orban is just not credible with the left," he
contended.


7. (SBU) Szabados commended FIDESZ's technical administration
of its election. Its large-scale door-to-door campaigning
and telephone call banks were new in Hungary, but not enough
for a electorate "in no mood to change governments."


8. (SBU) Asked what the future held for Orban, should FIDESZ
lose this election, Szabados predicted that Orban would
resign, but that he could return to politics within two
years. A loss, he thought, would offer MDF an ideal
opportunity to build a genuine, conservative party. It was
possible that an alliance with the Christian Democrats, now
cooperating with FIDESZ could be arranged.

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MSZP Turns the Corner
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9. (SBU) Szabados believed that MSZP had engineered 70
thousand "tactical" votes for SZDSZ to ensure that the Free
Democrats would make it into Parliament. That, he asserted,
had accounted for SZDSZ's improved showing in Budapest. With
this election, Szabados said MSZP had ended the Kadar era in
Hungary. FIDESZ's strategy had been "pragmatic." It had
asked voters what they wanted --increased pensions, more
roads, etc.-- then promised it to them. Gyurcsany, in
contrast, had addressed the electorate as adults; aware that
each new program came with a price tag. The response on
election day suggested he had largely succeeded with his
message, and his success had changed the MSZP.


10. (SBU) Gyurcsany's success had registered, Szabados
thought, on the MSZP's old guard. He described the MSZP's
Imre Szekeres and Katalin Szili dogging Gyurcsany around the
MSZP's campaign nerve center the evening of April 9. Still,
he thought the party remains potentially fractious, and
suggested that a slim majority in Parliament could continue
to be an important source of external discipline.


11. (SBU) Although the MSZP and the SZDSZ had quickly agreed
on a joint strategy for round two of the elections, Szabados
did not exclude difficult inter-party relations as a
government was being formed. SZDSZ Minister of Education
Balint Magyar had been "the first minister sacked during a
campaign debate," he said, referring to Gyurcsany's comment
in his April 5 debate with Orban. (Gyurcsany said, "We need a
Socialist minister of education...") That could set the
stage for tough inter-party bargaining to come.


12. (SBU) Victory April 23 would give Gyurcsany a mandate to
introduce austerity measures, Szabados thought. It was likely
the Prime Minister would opt for a "stealth austerity
package." Immediate, very public cuts would jeopardize

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MSZP's performance in the all-important October local
elections, and that could not be tolerated.


13. (SBU) In the only comment with a foreign policy
component, Szabados alleged that the pre-election visit to
Hungary by Russian President Putin had registered positively
in rural Hungary, where farmers see Russia as an export
market for their produce. Both Gyurcsany and MSZP President
Hiller had exploited the Russia angle effectively during the
campaign, he thought, asking audiences in rural Hungary, "Who
is the real patriot? The party that gets Hungarian goods to
Russian markets."

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Comment
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14. (SBU) Time will tell if Szabados's day-after predictions
about round two and analysis of round one are accurate, but
it is clear that the April 9 results represent a setback for
FIDESZ; one that it will be difficult for the party to
recover from in the less than two weeks remaining until round
two.


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