The Budapest Stock Exchange reached its zenith for the year earlier this month, having risen by a quarter since Jan. 1. It was buoyed by flows of foreign capital. Foreign investors disliked the outgoing government for its heavy-handed interventionism and micro-management of the economy. It was also tainted by nepotism and cronyism, though not by outright and crass corruption.
Having apparently learned nothing from his biting defeat in the first round of the elections on April 7, the youthful and unrepentant prime minister, Orban, fanned the xenophobia that has become his hallmark. He cited the stock exchange's vicissitudes as proof positive of the undue and pernicious influence of "big (read: foreign) capital," likely to be running the country under the socialists.
In some ways, these elections seem to perpetuate a pattern. No government in central Europe has leveraged its first term to win a second one. Yet, in other ways, these elections are a watershed. What is decided is not the fate of politician or a party. At stake is the process of EU enlargement and the future image of a united Europe.
In a massive rally on Saturday at Kossuthter in front of the well-lit building of parliament, Orban, flanked by pop stars and celebrity athletes, addressed the crowd, claiming to believe in the forces of "unity and love". He implored his listeners to join the train to the future. He contrasted the Bokros austerity plan of his socialist predecessors with his own business-friendly Szechenyi program. He called upon voters to "bring a friend with them to vote (for the party he chairs, Fidesz)."
Orban stands for a prouder, more affluent, Hungary. No longer the mendicant at the gates of the kingdom of Brussels, he promotes the interests of his country fearlessly and does not recoil from tough bargaining and even conflict. While unwaveringly committed to the European project, Orban, like Vaclav Klaus in the Czech Republic, is an unmistakable nationalist.
His nationalism often comes uncomfortably close to a vision of "Great Hungary". It is a non-territorial kind of expansionism and it encompasses all the Hungarians wronged by the treaty of Trianon and doomed to become minorities in neighboring countries.
By showering these expatriates with financial benefits and extra-territorial rights, Orban has engaged in economic imperialism on a minor scale. The socialists want to renegotiate the agreement with Romania, granting special privileges to Romanian temporary workers in Hungary. This was the political price Orban had to pay in order to extend these rights and more to Hungarians in Romania.
Fidesz has an informal and uneasy alliance with MIEP, the far right, ultra-nationalist, and intermittently anti-Semitic, Hungarian Justice and Life Party. Its supporters attended the Saturday rally. Its leaders called on Fidesz to out and accept MIEP's help publicly.
Quoted in Hungarian Radio, deputy parliamentary group leader, Csaba Lentner, said that "it could have tragic consequences if the 250,000 MIEP voters will not even receive a good word from the center-right for their unselfish sacrifice (in voting for Fidesz in the second round, as their leadership recommended)."
The nation-state may have been grafted on Eastern Europe in the 20th century -- but in central Europe it has always been a natural outgrowth. Yet, in both regions it derives its vitality from the land. Nationalism in the east has agrarian, rustic roots. Orban inevitably gravitated towards the village -- the symbol of tradition, wholesomeness, integrity, forthrightness, honesty, deep-rooted commitment to the nation, the abode of the nuclear family -- home and hearth. No wonder that the main bones of contention in the negotiations towards EU accession are farm subsidies and agricultural policy.
This mythical vision was contrasted with the city -- Budapest. Cosmopolitan, traitorous, non-productive, swarming with criminals, con-men, foreigners, and uprooted intellectuals. Orban starved Budapest by denying it access to budget funds. He clashed with its mayor publicly and gleefully. He berated urbanites and extolled the farmers. He was duly punished in the ballot box by disgruntled city-dwellers.
Europe's hinterland -- the vast arable lands of Poland, Germany, Hungary, Ukraine, and Russia -- is being denuded by the forces of the market. The cities swell inexorably. Urban development has become unsustainable. Infrastructure is crumbling. Crime is soaring. Orban represents the forces of reaction to these disturbing trends.
Orban may be paying the price for the success of the Hungarian economy. Capitalism is driven by inequality -- and ruined by iniquity. Capitalist societies encourage people to swap their rags for riches. Capitalism seeks to foster constructive envy and the wish to emulate success stories. But a society divided among haves and haves not is, by definition, unequal and polarized. In post-communist societies, evenly spread destitution is often preferred to unevenly spread affluence. Gnawing envy may have led to electoral retribution.
Orban was also accused of authoritarianism, cronyism, and patronage. These have nothing to do with capitalism and a lot to do with nanny-state communism. Old habits die hard. State interference, the formation of a nomenclature, cronyism in privatization deals, lack of transparency, paranoia - are all leftovers from four decades of communist depredation.
In an ominous note, Peter Medgyessy, the socialist's technocratic prime ministerial candidate, vowed to honor agreements signed by the current government -- if they are found to be legal. Orban, being the brash representative of a new generation, was supposed not to have been contaminated by a depraved past. But he proved to be even more socialist than any socialist before him. The markets rejoiced at the reasonable prospect of his political demise.
Where is the EU headed? Will it become a confederation of independent nation-states, as Britain would have it? Or will a United States of Europe emerge and subsume its components, the erstwhile nation-states?
This may well be decided in central Europe rather than in its west. Countries like France and Britain are already committed to one model or another. The swing votes -- today's applicants, tomorrow's members -- will, in all likelihood, determine the outcome of this debate. Hungary realizes that the greater the number of candidates it sponsors, the more clout it will possess in any future arrangement. Hence, its continued demands to commence preliminary discussions with Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova -- the EU's future neighbors following enlargement -- with a view to their ultimate accession.
It was a Frenchman (Ernest Renan) who wrote: "Nations are not eternal. They had a beginning and they will have an end. And they will probably be replaced by a European confederation."
