Strategic advice from a Socialist veteran
August 28th, 2019A left-wing author who served for 12 years as a Socialist MP and then as a member of the European Parliament warns the Hungarian opposition against expecting ‘salvation from foreign powers’.
In Népszava, Gyula Hegyi, a left-wing catholic journalist who was elected vice-chairman of the Socialist Party last year, recalls how the opposition was disappointed when Chancellor Merkel of Germany praised Hungary’s performance during her visit to Hungary earlier this month (See BudaPost, August 22). The German economy is on the brink of recession and Mrs Merkel is therefore interested in Hungary as a partner and as a market. Similarly, any hopes that the United States might impose a political change on the Hungarian government have proven groundless, Hegyi continues. He shares the opposition’s accusations about what he describes as pervasive corruption and suggests that European Union funds should be channelled to Hungary through institutions independent from the Hungarian government. But as for a regime change, Hegyi says it should come from inside, from an opposition whose task it is to convince the electorate that it would govern better than the incumbent government. For the moment, however, international leaders are much better known in Hungary than the leaders of Hungarian opposition parties, he complains.