Articles by: Christopher Adam

Béla Bugár

Slovakia’s Hungarian party may join coalition with racist anti-Hungarian extremists

In a macabre turn of events, the disastrous results of Slovakia’s parliamentary elections mean that the country’s main Hungarian party, called Híd (Bridge), may end up in an unruly right-wing coalition government with none other than the anti-Hungarian and racist Slovak National Party (SNS – Slovenská národná strana). We provided an analysis of the disturbing results of the Slovak elections […]

by · March 8, 2016 · East
Marian Kotleba. Photo: Új Szó.

Slovakia’s nightmare election

Following Saturday’s parliamentary election, Slovakia faces a badly fractured parliament, an almost impossible task of building a functional coalition government, the decimation of the country’s two Hungarian minority parties and, perhaps worst of all, the entry into parliament of an openly neo-Nazi movement, which makes Hungary’s Jobbik pale in comparison. Slovakia’s current Prime Minister Robert Fico and his populist centre-left […]

by · March 6, 2016 · East
Fidesz party director and vice president Gábor Kubatov.

Hungary’s Fidesz director embedded with the Republicans

Gábor Kubatov, Fidesz’s party director and voter mobilization expert–who gained a degree of infamy for creating databases containing exhaustive amounts of personal voter data–is reportedly too busy to address the controversy surrounding the use of skinheads to physically block a Socialist MP from submitting a proposed referendum question on Sunday store closures to the National Election Office. Mr. Kubatov is […]

by · March 3, 2016 · Politics
Salgótarján

Hungary’s Socialists get major boost in Salgótarján mayoral election

The Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP) badly needed a victory. The party has been in a cycle of stagnation and slow decline for over six years. It was bleeding some support to former Socialist Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány’s Democratic Coalition (DK), which has managed to hold its own in terms of its modest support, and with Socialist headquarters, offices and other […]

by · February 29, 2016 · Politics
Gábor Alfréd Fehérvári (Freddie) will represent Hungary at the Eurovision festival in Stockholm. Photo: Duna TV.

Eurovision 2016 and Hungary — Lost opportunities

Eurovision is the target of much derision in the United Kingdom–a country, which has great, diverse talent, but has essentially no chance of ever winning a music festival that has descended into a trite, flashy circus, catering mainly to eastern European nationalists. Countries with large diaspora or expatriate populations tend to do much better in Eurovision, because voting rules stipulate […]

by · February 28, 2016 · Culture
Skinheads and thugs, dressed in black, prevented the Socialists from submitting their proposed referendum question to the National Election Office. Nobody could enter the office, unless they  were allowed in by the mysterious and intimidating men.

Political thuggery in Hungary

Prime Minister Viktor is planning on holding a referendum on whether Hungary should agree to EU-wide quotas on the division of refugees amongst European Union member states. The Hungarian leader announced his plans for a plebiscite, in which the government will campaign for the “no” side, one day after skinheads and thugs, almost certainly hired by Fidesz politicians or oligarchs, […]

by · February 24, 2016 · Politics
Roma in Tiszavasvári. Photo: Dániel Németh / Magyar Narancs

Panic breaks out in a Hungarian Roma community

Panic broke out on Tuesday in the eastern Hungarian town of Tiszavasvári, with parents storming into the local school and kindergarten to take home children, as news spread that the local municipal government, led by far-right mayor Erik Fülöp, was planning to take Roma children into state care. According to official statistics, 9% of the town’s population of 12,840 is […]

by · February 16, 2016 · Focus
Twenty thousand protests in Kossuth square on February 13th, 2016. Photo: Tamás Kovács/MTI.

Twenty thousand protest Orbán’s education policies in Budapest

More than twenty thousand teachers, school administrators, students, parents and union activists took to the very rainy streets of Budapest on Saturday morning, and marched together from Jászai Mari tér, near Budapest’s Margaret Bridge, to Parliament. The mass demonstration is the largest since the series of so-called “internet protests” in 2014, when tens of thousands marched in opposition to the […]

by · February 13, 2016 · Focus
Vivien Szalai on the right, pictured in this seflie with close friends Fanni Kaminsly (middle) and Cecília Rogán (left).

All in the family in Orbán’s Hungary

To be the director of a public institute, a high-ranking diplomat (ambassador or consul general), a management-level civil servant, a leader in public broadcasting or in much of Hungary’s private media, you not only frequently have to be clearly loyal to the ruling Fidesz party, but you often need a personal family connection to players in Viktor Orbán’s Prime Minister’s Office. There […]

by · February 9, 2016 · Politics
Teachers, parents and students march in the northeastern city of Miskolc on February 3rd. Photo: MTI.

Hungary’s government is traumatizing teachers, students and parents

More than 5,000 teachers, students and parents took to the streets of Miskolc last week, in what may have been a first in modern Hungarian history, to demand that the Orbán regime in Budapest end its heavily centralized and authoritarian approach to public education, where teachers and school administrators are stripped of all autonomy and where they are ordered to […]

by · February 8, 2016 · Focus