Left-wing arguments against alliance with Jobbik
November 23rd, 2017A leftist columnist finds it immoral and futile for the left-liberal side to seek an electoral alliance with Jobbik, in spite of Gábor Vona’s shift towards the political centre.
In the first Népszava column on recent proposals to shape an informal pact with Jobbik in an effort to unseat the incumbent government, Gábor Czene thinks the idea promoted mainly by liberal personalities, including philosopher Ágnes Heller (See BudaPost, November 21) is not feasible. First of all, he argues, Jobbik itself flatly rejects any form of co-operation with the left-wing parties and thus a potential left-wing offer has been turned down before it could even be advanced. Secondly, Czene continues, Jobbik is the radical right-wing party which introduced racist discourse into Hungarian politics, and no matter how serious party leader Vona may be about abandoning that discourse, a whole movement cannot be re-shaped ideologically in such an abrupt fashion. Czene warns that an alliance with Jobbik, if it were possible, would be suicidal for the Left.