Fidesz keeps its lead in the polls

As Fidesz seems immovable from its ruling position, left-liberal analysts wonder if half-hearted co-operation among left-wing opposition parties is the reason why their chances of winning next year’s election are so meagre.

In 168 Óra, Zoltán Lakner thinks that the discussion on whether opposition parties should coalesce is a ‘pseudo-debate’. Almost all of them in fact want to cooperate with the rest in one form or another, with the lone exception of Momentum. What the debate is really about, he believes, is what the balance of power should be within a future electoral coalition. The three parties which are in a position to pass the 5% threshold (the MSZP, LMP and DK), suggest that cooperation should be confined to the hundred and six individual constituencies, while they would run independently for their share of the remaining 93 seats, distributed according to the votes cast on party lists. The smaller parties however, which each enjoy around 1% support among the electorate, will have to join one of those three in order to get some of their people elected and ensure that the votes cast for their candidates are not lost. The problem is, Lakner writes, that the opposition should win 40 individual constituencies if it wants to prevent Fidesz from being returned to power, but at present polls suggest that even with Jobbik included, they could not even get 30. The solution, the left-wing analyst says, could only be found through what he calls consistent political effort– but he doesn’t specify what this should consist of.

In Élet és Irodalom, László Cseresnyési lambasts Momentum for refusing any kind of electoral pact with the rest of the left-liberal parties. Last week, András Radnóti, an analyst with The Economist Intelligence Unit in London who is also a prominent member of Momentum, rejected what he called the ‘alliance trap’ arguing that the mere idea of sending the incumbent government packing did not amount to ‘a value’. Voters must be given an alternative, he added, and that alternative can only come from new forces which have not been compromised by earlier political misdeeds. Cseresnyés admits that Radnóti has a point there, and even calls the present opposition parties ‘a many coloured riffraff’, but asks whether the price of leaving the present governing forces in place is not too high. ‘Do we have the time to wait until the people regains consciousness and repairs this painful world?’ he asks.

Tags: Momentum, opposition, polls