Hungary’s unseasonably warm, spring-like weather is about to cool off in the next few days, and the political climate is also showing some signs of change, with a growing number of demographic groups cooling to the increasingly insular, arrogant and corrupt Orbán regime. This week, the ruling Fidesz party (it’s really not a ruling party, but rather a ruling clique […]
One cannot be a passive bystander when faced with injustice or oppression–this was the overarching message of a Holocaust commemoration and candle-lighting, organized at the Ottawa City Hall on February 1st, 2016. This year’s commemoration, which was spearheaded by Vera Gara, a Holocaust survivor of Hungarian origins, included a wide range of speakers, notably religious leaders from different faith communities, […]
More than 27,000 individuals and 500 institutions have signed an open letter launched by teachers at the Herman Ottó High School in the eastern Hungarian town of Miskolc, calling on the Orbán regime to re-think the chaotic, highly centralized and authoritarian educational system that it created. Teachers are not only upset about their low wages, but perhaps even more so […]
Dániel Gazsó is a researcher and employee of the Budapest-based Research Institute of National Policy (in Hungarian, the Nemzetpolitikai Kutatóintézet – NPKI). In November 2015, Mr. Gazsó–a cultural anthropology graduate of the Universidad de Granada–contacted hundreds of Hungarians living in diaspora communities, who happened to volunteer for local Hungarian-language radios, television broadcasts, newspapers and news sites. Mr. Gazsó asked those engaged in […]
The far-right Jobbik continues to slowly bleed away support, while after six months of increased popularity, the governing Fidesz party is also seeing a modest decline in its numbers. The boost in popularity that Fidesz experienced during the refugee crisis now appears to be waning, as that issue begins to recede. A new poll produced by Publicus for the Vasárnapi […]
The small Politics Can Be Different (LMP) green party has decided to air new, concrete information on corruption within Hungary’s governing Fidesz party each week, and the first such example of the misuse of funds was presented on Thursday, complemented by a secret tape recording, as evidence. Ákos Hadházy, a former municipal politician in the town of Szekszárd, left Fidesz […]
Hungary is now the fifth most corrupt country in the European Union, behind only Bulgaria, Greece, Italy and Romania, according to statistics released by Transparency International on Wednesday. The organization’s corruption perception index (CPI) measures trends within the public sectors of countries around the world. While the CPI for 2015 shows an improvement in both Greece and the United Kingdom, […]
The title of this article might seem overly polemical, but I can’t think of a more accurate way to describe plans that were leaked this week to lay off 20% of the civil servants working in key national public institutions in 2016, followed by a further 10% in layoffs in 2017. This year’s 20% reduction will put 6,000 Hungarian civil […]
Over a thousand protesters took to the streets of Budapest on Sunday, to protest the Orbán regime’s proposed amendment to the Fundamental Law of Hungary (the new constitution introduced by Fidesz in 2011), which give sweeping powers to the government and completely sideline parliament, whenever authorities decide that a “state of terror” is imminent. According to the proposed amendment, Prime […]
Hungary’s governing party has long been concerned with the country’s demographic decline–and Hungarian political leaders have good reason to worry. In 2005, Hungary’s population stood at 10.1 million. A decade later, at the end of 2015, the Hungarian Central Statistical Office (KSH) estimates the total population at 9.8 million. The fact that 67% of Hungarian students told pollsters that they would want to […]
