Hungary political briefing: International affairs setting the agenda of domestic politics

Weekly Briefing, Vol. 27, No. 1 (HU), March 2020

 

International affairs setting the agenda of domestic politics

 

 

February was characterized by the outbreak of the coronavirus and the preparations for the arrival of the disease in Hungary. Obviously, the reactions of the government to this unusual scenario can be a topic of political debates, whether they are justified for or not. And the debate is at a potential point where opposition parties can get their messages to the voters, in order to politicize the situation that otherwise would require an unbiased, and neutral tone.  The other element of international events setting the agenda of domestic politics is the decision of the Turkish government not stopping migrants at its borders but giving them freeway leaving the country. It is clear that if Greece and other Balkan countries are not able to stop them, the Hungarian government too must deal with the question. In this briefing we focus on the different interpretations of the events, however the briefing first provides a short overview of the results of the latest political surveys.

 

1. Political support in numbers

The Závecz Research Institute’s survey was carried out in the second and third week of February, and it included 1,000 persons. The data set revealed what the party preferences would be if the likely voters were to show more active voters in Hungary. Based on this data set, the Fidesz-KDNP would receive 31 percent of the votes, which is a slight improvement in contrast to the January data (29 percent). The DK still ranks the second with 9 percent support, and both the Jobbik (from 6 to 7 percent) and the MSZP (from 5 to 6 percent) were able to increase the number of their supporters compared to last year’s autumn. Other political parties are way below the 5-percentage threshold needed to qualify for Parliament party fraction. (This threshold means that candidates of the given can get a Parliamentary seat but cannot build a political fraction.) When it comes to results among eligible voters, there is a significant gap between Fidesz-KDNP with its 51 percent and all other parties. The next one after Fidesz-KDNP in the ranking is the DK with only 14 percent. The Jobbik has a support of 10 percent, the Momentum has a support of 9 percent in this group, while only 7 percent of the eligible voters support the MSZP, all other parties again are below the 5-percentage threshold. In the Institute’s understanding, the Hungarian voters can be divided into 3 basic groups, one third supporting the ruling party, the other third endorsing the opposition parties, and the last third is not sure whether to vote and for whom to vote. The Závecz Research Institute questioned the persons in the survey as for their assessment of current developments. It turned out that 83 percent of those voting for Fidesz-KDNP evaluate the current situation very positively, while 92 percent of those preferring opposition are skeptical about the future. It should be added that in the camp of the Fidesz-KDNP voters, those assessing the development rather negatively are typically below 40 and usually with lower education. On the opposite side, those opposition voters who still interpret current development more positively, are typically above 60. These two groups are very likely to be addressed through new messages by both Fidesz-KDNP and the opposition parties.

 

Table 1. Political support in the group of likely voters (%)
	Závecz-Research	Medián	Nézőpont Institute
Fidesz-KDNP	51	55	50
DK	14	13	10
Jobbik	10	11	10
Momentum	9	7	13
MSZP	7	6	5
LMP	2	4	4
Other parties	7	4	8
Source: own compilation based on the survey of the given research institutes

 

On behalf of Euronews, the IDEA Institute carried out a representative survey including 2.500 persons in February. In the survey, they raised the question of which countries do people think are allies of Hungary, and which countries pose as threats to us. The results were very much influenced by party sympathies of people; thus they published the data dividing people into subgroups depending on the party preferences of those questioned in the survey.

 

Table 2. Preferences as for which country is important for Hungary to have good relations with
	US	Russia	China	EU	Israel	Other countries	Doesn’t know
Fidesz supporters	15	25	4	37	1	4	14
Jobbik	3	8	0	82	0	3	4
MSZP	2	10	1	77	1	4	5
DK	0	0	0	100	0	0	0
LMP	7	6	0	72	10	0	5
Momentum	7	0	0	90	2	0	1
Source: IDEA Institute

 

The results help us understand that the opposition voters mainly focus on the EU, and they think the EU is the most important ally, while Fidesz supporters have more diversified opinions, that in our understanding reflect more of the realities of the world economy and world politics. The US, Russian and Chinese relations are much more appreciated by the voters. At the same time, we should add that these results must be interpreted extremely carefully since we don’t know how many people makeup f. ex. the supporter camp of the DK, and at least for us it seems to be highly unlikely that every DK supporter thinks that only the EU can be framed as an ally for Hungary. (See table 2!)

The people participating in the survey were also asked about which country they think is the most dangerous for Hungary to be allied with. (See table 3!). This data set confirms our former conclusion that Fidesz voters are more skeptical about the EU’s role in Hungary’s development, while the roles played by China, Russia and the US are being interpreted more positively, since the alleged threat posed by these countries is significantly smaller than what opposition party supporters claim. Interestingly, the alleged threat posed by China is also being interpreted as low by DK, LMP and Momentum voters.

 

Table 3. Preferences as for which country is dangerous for Hungary to have good relations with
	US	Russia	China	EU	Israel	Other countries	Doesn’t know
Fidesz supporters	6	12	6	24	22	22	8
Jobbik	5	47	12	0	24	18	4
MSZP	2	56	12	1	7	14	8
DK	0	83	4	0	6	6	1
LMP	7	71	5	0	10	5	2
Momentum	0	86	4	0	6	0	3
Source: IDEA Institute

 

2. Reactions to the coronavirus and the new migration crisis

As to date, there are four coronavirus patients in Hungary (04-03-2020), who were transferred to the hospital and are being treated accordingly and around 40 persons in quarantine. Despite the later arrival of the virus, the Hungarian government had already taken several policy measures to react and slow down the spread of the virus in Hungary. To make things more complicated at taking prevention measures, the Turkish government announced this week that they are not going to stop migrants from getting to the Turkish-Greek borders and preventing them from crossing and entering Greek waters. As an explanation, the Turkish government blamed the European Union which allegedly did not make its part of the migration deal.[1] There seems to be a clear disagreement on the terms of the payment since the EU paid out 2.3 Billion euros while earmarking 4.7 Billion for several initiatives (in other words, the money was sent to the projects and not to the Turkish government directly).

According to the Hungarian government, 80,000 migrants crossed the border since the Turkish move, and there are already around 130,000 migrants in the Balkans. And this situation not only raises security concerns but given the fact that many migrants come from the virus affected countries, such as Iran and Iraq, the new wave of migrants can threaten health care measures aimed at stopping the spread of the virus. The Hungarian Prime Minister reminded us a few days ago that the Hungarian approach dealing with migrants has become a norm in the European Union, and the likelihood of stopping migration is larger now than 4-5 years ago. However, he added, if the EU measures aren’t clear, they won’t be able to stop migration at the Greek-Turkish border, Hungary is still there to protect Europe from mass migration, he said.

 

3. Summary

The two topics (corona virus and migration) and the determinate policy measures are easy to communicate to the voters, and in our understanding that will give the government ample opportunities to get additional support from the dedicated voters and attract some indecisive voters too. Though we think that the topic and the direct measures preventing the spread of coronavirus will be more urgent to communicate, the economic effects of the disease will be more important to deal with.

The results of the IDEA Institute are crucial to show that the voters of the ruling party are realistic about the world politics and economy that surrounds the country, and at the same time, they seem to pay attention to Hungary’s national interests.

 

[1] The agreement was reached between the EU and Turkey in 2016, when the partners agreed that the EU in exchange for definite Turkish measures to stop the flow of illegal migrant agreed to allocate six Billion Euro to Turkey until the end of 2018.