Viktor Orbán
Viktor Orbán | |
|---|---|
| Prime Minister of Hungary | |
| In office 6 July 1998 – 27 May 2002 | |
| President | Árpád Göncz Ferenc Mádl |
| Preceded by | Gyula Horn |
| Succeeded by | Péter Medgyessy |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 31 May 1963 Székesfehérvár, Hungary |
| Political party | Fidesz (conservative) |
| Spouse | Anikó Lévai |
Viktor Orbán (born 31 May 1963) is a Hungarian politician. He was the Prime Minister of Hungary from 1998 to 2002, and is currently the leader of Fidesz, which in 2010 won 52.73% of the vote and an absolute majority of seats in the parliament of Hungary.
Background
He was born on 31 May 1963 in Székesfehérvár and spent his childhood in two nearby villages, Alcsútdoboz and Felcsút. In 1977 his family moved to Székesfehérvár.
He studied English language at secondary school, which he graduated from in 1981. In 1981 and 1982 he completed his military service, then he studied law at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest. He graduated in 1987. For the next two years he lived in Szolnok, but commuted to Budapest where he had a job as a sociologist at the Management Training Institute of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food.
In 1989 Mr Orbán received a scholarship from the Soros Foundation and spent a half year in Oxford, where he studied at Pembroke College.
Viktor Orbán is married to jurist Anikó Lévai. Mr. Orbán is a Protestant, while maintaining good relations with the leaders of all the major churches in Hungary. Orbán and his wife have five children. He is very fond of sports, especially of football; he is a signed player of the Felcsút football team, and as a result he also appears in Football Manager 2006.
Political career
Mr. Orbán was a founding member of the Fidesz party (an acronym of FIatal DEmokraták SZövetsége which means "Alliance of Young Democrats" in Hungarian), which was formed on 30 March 1988. On 16 June 1989, Mr. Orbán gave a speech in Heroes' Square, Budapest, on the occasion of the reburial of Imre Nagy and other national martyrs of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. In his speech he demanded free elections and the withdrawal of Soviet troops. The speech brought him wide national and political acclaim. In the summer of 1989 he took part in the Opposition Roundtable negotiations.
In 1990 he became a member of the Hungarian parliament and leader of Fidesz, which was transformed from a liberal (Fidesz was a member of Liberal International) into a right-wing conservative party under his direction, after the collapse of the national right in 1994. In 1995 the party changed its name to Fidesz-MPP (Federation of Young Democrats – Hungarian Civic Party).
Orbán also holds the position of Vice President of the European People's Party (EPP) since October 2002.
Fidesz-MPP won the 1998 parliamentary elections with 42% of the national vote, in alliance with the remnants of the Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF) (the backbone of Hungary's first democratically elected government from 1990-94), promising improvements in the welfare system as an antidote to the bitter austerity program of the outgoing coalition government of the Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP) and Alliance of Free Democrats (SZDSZ). Thus, Viktor Orbán became the second youngest Prime Minister of Hungary at 35 (after András Hegedűs), serving between 1998 and 2002.
Orbán's economic policy was aimed at cutting taxes and social insurance contributions over four years while reducing inflation and unemployment. Among its first measures the new government abolished university tuition fees and reintroduced universal maternity benefits. The government announced its intention to continue the Socialist-Liberal stabilization program and pledged to narrow the budget deficit, which had grown to 4.5% of the GDP. The previous Cabinet had almost completed the privatization of government-run industries and had launched a comprehensive pension reform. The Socialists had avoided two major socioeconomic issues, however - reform of the health care and the agricultural system, these remained to be tackled by Orbán's government.
The new government immediately launched a radical reform of state administration, reorganizing ministries and creating a super-ministry for the economy. In addition, the boards of the social security funds and centralized social security payments were dismissed. Following the German model, Orbán strengthened the prime minister's office and named a new minister to oversee the work of his Cabinet. In the process thousands of civil servants were replaced (no distinction is made between political and civil servant posts, resulting in a strong "winner takes all" practice). The overall direction was towards centralized control.
Hungary gained substantial international exposure in May 1999 when, along with Poland and the Czech Republic, it joined NATO. Hungary was immediately called upon to make important decisions as an alliance member: the country opted to act as a passive participant in NATO's military intervention in Yugoslavia, its neighbour to the south, over the Kosovo crisis. This passive participation is widely seen as due to the poor state of the Hungarian armed forces.
Despite vigorous protests from the opposition parties, in February the government decided that plenary sessions of the unicameral National Assembly would be held only every third week. As a result, according to opposition arguments, parliament's legislative efficiency and ability to supervise the government were reduced. In late March the government's attempt to replace the National Assembly rule calling for a two-thirds majority vote with a simple majority, but this was ruled unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court.
At the same time, the Orbán cabinet continued to strengthen the prime-minister-led political system and introduced the new institution of the constructive vote of no confidence.
The year saw only minor changes in top government officials. Two of Orbán's state secretaries in the prime minister's office had to resign in May because of their implication in a bribery scandal involving the U.S. military manufacturer Lockheed Martin Corp. In advance of bids on a major jet-fighter contract, the two secretaries, along with 32 other deputies of Mr. Orban's party, had sent a letter to two U.S. senators to lobby for the appointment of a Budapest-based Lockheed manager to be the U.S. ambassador to Hungary. On August 31 the head of the Tax Office also resigned, succumbing to protracted attacks by the opposition on his earlier, allegedly suspicious, business dealings. The tug-of-war between the Budapest city council and the government continued over the latter's decision in late 1998 to cancel two major urban projects: the construction of a new national theatre and of the fourth subway line.
Economic successes included a drop in inflation from 15% in 1998 to 10.0% in 1999, 9.8% in 2000 and 7.8% in 2001. GDP growth rates were fairly steady: 4.4% in 1999, 5.2% in 2000, and 3.8% in 2001. The fiscal deficit fell from 3.9% in 1999, to 3.5% in 2000 and 3.4% in 2001 and the ratio of the national debt was reduced to 54 percent of GDP. Under the Orban cabinet there were realistic hopes that Hungary would be able to join the Eurozone by 2009. However, negotiations for entry into the European Union slowed in the fall of 1999 after the EU included six more countries (in addition to the original six) in the accession discussions. Mr Orbán repeatedly criticized the EU for its delay. As of Q4 2009, Hungary still does not meet the criteria for joining the Eurozone.
Relations between the Fidesz-led coalition government and the opposition worsened in the National Assembly, where the two seemed to have abandoned all attempts at consensus-seeking politics. The government pushed to swiftly replace the heads of key institutions, e.g. the Hungarian National Bank chairman, the Budapest City Chief Prosecutor, and appointed partisan figures as heads of the H.N. Bank, the Hungarian Radio and Chief Prosecutor. While the opposition attempted to resist, e.g. by delaying their appointing of members of the supervising boards, the government simply ignored it and ran the institutions without the stipulated number of directors. In a similar vein PM Orbán failed to show up for question time in parliament, for periods of up to 10 months. His statements of the kind that "The parliament works without opposition too..." also contributed to the image of an arrogant and aggressive governance.
Orbán also came under criticism for pushing through an unprecedented two-year budget and for failing to curb inflation, which only dropped a half point, from 10% in 1999 to 9.5% in 2000, despite the tight fiscal policy of the Central Bank. Investments, however, continued to grow.
Numerous political scandals during 2001 led to a de facto, if not actual, breakup of the coalition that held power in Budapest. A bribery scandal in February triggered a wave of allegations and several prosecutions against the Independent Smallholders' Party (FKGP). The affair resulted in the ousting of József Torgyán from both the FKGP presidency and the top post in the Ministry of Agriculture. The FKGP disintegrated and more than a dozen of its MPs joined the government faction, which looked like a major coup for PM Orbán.
The level of public support for political parties generally stagnated, even with general elections coming in 2002. Fidesz and the main opposition Hungarian Socialist Party ran neck and neck in the opinion polls for most of the year, both attracting about 26% of the electorate. According to a September 2001 poll by the Gallup organization, however, support for a joint Fidesz – Hungarian Democratic Forum party list would run up to 33% of the voters, with the Socialists drawing 28% and other opposition parties 3% each. Meanwhile, public support for the FKGP plunged from 14% in 1998 to 1% in 2001. As many as 40% of the voters remained undecided, however. Although the Socialists had picked their candidate for prime minister — former finance minister Péter Medgyessy — the opposition largely remained, unable to increase its political support.
The dark horse of the election was the radical nationalist Hungarian Justice and Life Party (MIÉP), with its leader István Csurka's radical rhetoric. MIÉP could not be ruled out as the key to a new term for Orbán and his party, should they be forced into a coalition after the 2002 elections.
Hungary attracted international media attention during the year for its passage of the s.c. "status law" concerning estimated three-million-strong ethnic Hungarian minorities in neighbouring (Romania, Slovakia, Serbia and Montenegro, Croatia, Slovenia and Ukraine),. The law was aimed at providing education and health benefits as well as employment rights to those, and was said to heal the negative effects of the disastrous 1920 Trianon Treaty. Governments in neighbouring states, particularly Romania, claimed to be insulted by the law, which they saw as an interference in their domestic affairs. The proponents of the status law countered, that several countries criticizing the law have themselves similar constructs to provide benefits for their own minorities. Romania acquiesced after amendments following a December 2001 agreement between Orbán and Romanian prime minister Adrian Năstase; Slovakia accepted the law after further concessions made by the new government after the 2002 elections.
A later report in March by the Brussels-based International Federation of Journalists criticized the Hungarian government for improper political influence in the media as the country's public service broadcaster teetered close to bankruptcy.
The elections of 2002 were the most heated Hungary had experienced in more than a decade, and an unprecedented cultural-political division formed in the country. In the event, Viktor Orbán's group lost the April parliamentary elections to the opposition Hungarian Socialist Party, which set up a coalition with its longtime ally, the liberal Alliance of Free Democrats. Turnout was a record-high 73.5%.
Beyond these parties, only deputies of the Hungarian Democratic Forum made it into the National Assembly. The populist Independent Smallholders' Party and the right Hungarian Justice and Life Party (MIÉP) lost all their seats. The number of political parties in the new assembly was therefore reduced from six to four.
MIÉP challenged the government's legitimacy, demanded a recount, complained of election fraud, and generally kept the country in election mode until the October municipal elections. The socialist-controlled Central Elections Committee ruled that a recount was unnecessary, a position supported by observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, whose only substantive criticism of the election conduct was that the state television carried a consistent bias in favour of Fidesz.
Life since government
Orbán was awarded the Freedom Award of the American Enterprise Institute and the New Atlantic Initiative (2001), the Polak Award (2001), the Grand Cross of the National Order of Merit (2001), the "Förderpreis Soziale Marktwirtschaft" (Price for the Social Market Economy, 2002) and the Mérite Européen prize (2004). In April, 2004. he was awarded the Papal Grand Cross of the Order of Saint Gregory the Great.
He was the candidate of Fidesz for the parliamentary election in 2006. Fidesz and its new-old candidate failed again to gain a majority in this election, which initially put Orbán's future political career as the leader of Fidesz in question. However, on fighting with socialist-liberal coalition, his position has been solidified again, and he was elected president of Fidesz yet again for another term in May 2007.
Viktor Orbán in the media
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Viktor Orbán is usually depicted by foreign media as a mainstream Hungarian politician and mention his anti-communist past, while often labelling him a populist. They often voice economic concerns over his proposed growth-based economic reform ideas. In January 2007 The Economist criticised his "cynical populism and mystifyingly authoritarian socialist-style policies".[1]
Domestically he is strongly demonized by the majority of the left-wing and liberal media. Since 2002 the campaign tactics of the governing coalition MSZP and SZDSZ increasingly relied on communicating the message "Anybody but Orbán" to their voters. Similarly, some of Orbán's own messages are heavily critical of the left-wing parties.
The most stormy incidents generating indignation happened in 2001. That April Magyar Hirlap made public a letter written by a reader that stated, "the killing of Orbán would do good to our nation". Also that month on left-wing TV channel RTL Klub, reporter Tamás Frei interviewed a Russian hitman, asking him for how much money would he kill the Hungarian prime minister (then Orban). Right-wingers thought it a provocative question. Later it turned out that the interview person wasn't a real hitman, but an actor paid by Frei.[2] After this scandal, RTL Klub apologised to Orbán, and the Luxembourgian owners of the channel began an inquiry. Frei subsequently lost his job (he now works at rival left-wing channel "TV2"). Political scientists and right-wing publicists call these phenomena "orban(o)phobia".[3][4]
A further method for the less favourable depiction of Viktor Orbán in left-wing Hungarian media is to hold him up to ridicule. The left-wing Saturday-night roundtable TV jokeshow "Heti Hetes" (which was popular during Fidesz's term of office) spends a significant part of its air time making fun of Viktor Orbán and the his attitude of his followers, which they consider sentimentally patriotic and folksy. Parody and criticism of Orbán were similarly strong and organized over the Internet, mostly during his time as prime minister. One of the popular ridicule tactics is to affix humorous nicknames to him, such as: A Zorbán (The Grim Orbán), see more (Zorb a small dwarf); Viktátor (Viktor-dictator); Alcsúti Törpe (Dwarf of Alcsút, the village where Mr. Orbán was born, because he is relatively short in stature), etc. Currently - as Orbán has much more sympathy with the general public than the left-wing leaders - he is much less parodied in such ways. Nowadays Ferenc Gyurcsány has similar status (especially since 2006's speech of Őszöd).
According to his supporters, the way the major Western organs present the Alliance of Young Democrats (FIDESZ) is often biased and distorted as their correspondents mainly rely on information obtained from leading Hungarian liberal intellectuals who are staunch supporters of the governing coalition of the Socialists and the Free Democrats (the Free Democrats left the coalition in 2008 but continue to support the Socialists, who are governing in minority.) In reality, Standard and Poor's, IMF and other financial institutions are both financially and politically independent from the left wing of Hungary, the way they criticise Mr. Orbán's politics is more probably the result of their own analysis of the situation and their independent simulation of the theoretical results of his party's stated intended economic actions. The current parliamentary support for the expenditure-cutting and economy stimulus package of the current Government of Experts intended for reducing the harmful effects of the World Economic Crisis prevents the dissolution of Parliament and holding of early elections, although the supporting parties have lost all political and moral legitimacy by now in the eyes of those FIDESZ-supporters who are considered by some to be enraged for believing the current tax-lowering, social expenditure-increasing proposals of his party, the implementation of which is expected to cause faster rising state-debt by the above-mentioned two financial institutions, which in turn would cause devaluation and increased inflation of the currency according to different intellectuels.[5][6][7]
Trivia
He played the bit part of a footballer in the Hungarian family film 'Szegény Dzsoni és Árnika' (1983).[8]
Orbán has played soccer from early childhood; he is currently one of the players and main financiers of Hungarian football club Felcsút FC.
References
- ^ Stars and soggy bottoms (Economist.com)
- ^ [1] Index.hu
- ^ [2]. MNO.hu (hungarian)
- ^ [3] Nepszabadsag.hu.
- ^ How Populism Fuels a Financial Crisis by Alex Brandy (Wall Street Journal, 2009)
- ^ Socialist leader says Fidesz raising Hungary's international risk profile (Politics.hu news portal)
- ^ Survey finds average Jobbik supporters uneducated, unemployed (Politics.hu news portal)
- ^ Szegény Dzsoni és Árnika (1983) - Full cast and crew IMDB.com.