The opposition, Eszter Kováts writes, should not succumb to Orbán’s friend versus foe politics in the European elections.
A clemency scandal recently stirred the stagnant waters of Hungarian politics. In the biggest crisis for the Fidesz party in its 14 years of continuous rule, the Hungarian president, Katalin Novák, and the former justice minister, Judit Varga—who was to head the Fidesz list in the European Parliament elections in June—had to resign last month, amid growing pressure from not only the opposition but also the party’s own supporters.
Their sin? Novák had signed and Varga counter-signed a pardon for a man jailed for forcing children to retract sexual-abuse claims, since upheld, against a director of a state-run children’s home. By this pardon—discovered by a lawyer and reported by one of Hungary’s remaining independent media—the party’s two most prominent female politicians became complicit in covering up paedophilia.
The act of clemency was signed as one among 25 before Pope Francis’ visit to Hungary in April last year. As also subsequently uncovered by journalists, it followed the advice of Zoltán Balog, a former minister and Novák’s mentor—who had to resign too from his role as leader of the Hungarian Reformed Church.
The interest in politics stimulated by the affair and its public resonance were evidenced by viewing data for the (leftist) video channel Partizán. It secured more than 300,000 views for each commentary or interview produced in the days following the resignations—an interview (English subtitles) with Varga’s whistle-blowing ex-husband drew over 2.4 million. And a demonstration in mid-February, organised by nine ‘influencers’, attracted more than 150,000 protesters to Heroes’ Square in Budapest.
As a leading Hungarian journalist observed, it was not that Hungarians had turned away from politics—just that, for years, nothing interesting had happened. ‘Let’s imagine how interesting it would be if we had a coalition government, full of debates and intrigues, or we had government changes,’ he wrote. ‘Mourning about general apathy would disappear overnight.’
Strategy of polarisation
The scandal was embarrassing for Fidesz precisely because it has made ‘traditional values’ and child protection a Leitmotif of its politics. A ‘pro-family’ policy has not only been positively promoted but also linked to a strategy of polarisation. Families and children need to be protected, according to the party, from all sorts of dark dangers: LGBT+ individuals, same-sex parenting, ‘gender insanity’—all linked and connected with paedophilia.
All sorts of projections, causes and constituencies are brought together too by the claim that these horrors are foisted upon Hungarians by ‘the west’ and ‘Brussels’, aided and abetted by the opposition parties. Only Fidesz—with its charismatic leader and prime minister, Viktor Orbán—has stood resolute to stop them.
These accusations have been repeated ad nauseam for years, encapsulated in a so-called ‘child protection’ law passed in 2021. The governing parties added to the initial—and consensual—draft some points, mingling homosexuality with paedophilia, thereby reviving the hoary old stereotype that gays would be more of a danger to children than heterosexual adults. It having been made impossible for the opposition parties to vote for the bill, the latter have since been accused by the governing propaganda machine of not only not protecting children but standing up for paedophilia.
Orbán reiterated these claims in his speech on March 15th, the national holiday commemorating the 1848 revolution and the fight for freedom. He complained that ‘in the west everyone can choose his or her sex’, contending that ‘they want to indoctrinate our children and we will not allow that’—while condemning the opposition, which supposedly ‘would sell our children for 30 pieces of silver to crazy gender activists’.
Previously state secretary, then family minister and from 2022 Hungary’s first female president, Novák was not only the face of Fidesz’ most popular policy pitch (according to successive polls) but also its fight against everything it connects with ‘gender ideology’: gender studies, the Istanbul Convention on domestic violence, the claims of members of sexual and gender minorities, and reproductive rights. Internationally too she embodied these stances, expanding Fidesz’ room for manoeuvre in foreign policy and presenting Orbán’s Hungary as a role model for radical-right, traditionalist parties and movements Europe-wide.
Take, for instance, this comment by the German Christian social movement Demo für alle in 2020. In a text entitled ‘Let’s dare more Hungary’, it said: ‘Hungary is proof that giving in to pressure from gender ideologues and the LGBT lobby is not without alternatives. A constructive family policy is possible.’
Discourse debilitated
What this scandal has shown—besides how risky it is politically to pretend to weighty moral superiority, which can so easily backfire—is how Hungarian public discourse is flattened and debilitated along the Orbán-/anti-Orbán polarity, often by the media as well as the parties. This can be illustrated with two examples.
On ‘child protection’, Fidesz voters are led to believe that, single-handedly, Orbán stands at the borders and protects children from sex-change operations and gender-queer identities, which the opposition would render compulsory. To large segments of the opposition electorate meanwhile, the extent and nuance of the related debate in the west is denied or underestimated. The scandals around transitioning measures offered to minors (social transitioning, puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones) and the widespread incidence of ‘non-binary’ gender identities among the youth in several western countries are put down to government propaganda. As a result, it has become almost impossible in Hungary to carry out an honest, realistic and critical debate about developments on trans and queer issues in the west.
Meanwhile, on paedophilia, the government discourse has not only tied this to sexual and gender minorities but also sought to tar opposition political contenders with the brush. The most popular opposition party is the Democratic Coalition (DK), a member of the Socialists and Democrats family which has four seats in the European Parliament and has currently 12 per cent support among citizens committed to voting in June. Following the recent scandal, DK ran a wry communication campaign, including billboards with Orbán’s head on them and the slogan ‘God, Homeland, Paedophilia’ (the last replacing ‘family’). While it might have appeared opportune to to turn Fidesz’ weapons against itself, this is hardly going to elevate public discourse in Hungary.
Routinely rehearsed
Fidesz is planning to adopt a second child-protection law in the coming weeks. Officially, this will be so as to punish paedophiles more severely. But, given some remarks by Fidesz politicians and past experience, it is not unlikely that this will get mixed up, yet again, with messages against sexual and gender minorities. This will make it impossible for the opposition to vote for it and incite loud protest by ‘liberal’ elites and ‘western’ politicians—to be presented as proof of an unjust attack against the Hungarian government, indeed the ‘Hungarian nation’, in the script routinely rehearsed in recent years.
So far the clemency scandal has been used by the country’s ‘polarisation entrepreneurs’. That these two extremities do not however embrace all of the Hungarian electorate is proved by the increasing share of uncertain voters recorded by the polls, as well as the comet-like popularity of the current (if likely short-lived) messiah—Varga’s ex-husband, Péter Magyar. Following the reactions to his whistle-blowing, he decided to enter politics and positions himself against both poles.
It remains to be seen whether the European election campaign will be wholly dominated by this issue—or if any of the parties will instead try to propose alternatives for European politics that connect to people’s lives and can be addressed on the EU level.
This is a joint publication by Social Europe and IPS-Journal
Eszter Kováts (eszter.kovats@univie.ac.at) is Marie Skodłowska-Curie postdoctoral research fellow in the Institute of Political Science at the University of Vienna and a research affiliate of the Central European University. She was formerly responsible for the East-Central-European gender programme of the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung in Budapest.