HUNGARIANS BELIEVE THEIR POLITICIANS ARE CORRUPT

When Transparency International issued its report on election spending on Monday the section that captured the headlines was that showing that Fidesz would spend over double the legal limit – and get away with it. Fidesz stayed quiet on this revelation but needless to say the opposition parties took to the social media immediately.

However the last paragraphs of the report were ignored by all the parties. The simple reason for that is rightly or wrongly the majority of Hungarians believe their politicians are corrupt.

Commissioned by TI, the polling agency Psyma assessed public attitudes concerning the campaign. The findings show that only 8 per cent of the people expect a clean campaign, assuming that the parties will only make use of legal means before the elections. The conclusion has to be that up to 92 per cent did not.

According to the poll, the majority of the public thinks that both the ‘left-wing alliance to change the government’ (62 per cent) and Fidesz-KDNP (55 per cent) use funds from corrupt sources in their campaign, and every second person thinks the same about the far right Jobbik.

TI, the watchdog association K-Monitor and the investigative online portal Atlatszo.hu (Hungarian for ‘transparent’) believe an anti-corruption minimum programme is needed and it is in everybody’s interest to have one.

They have developed their anti-corruption minimum programme which can be found at www.ezaminimum.hu. The recommendations of the programme have been drawn up so that a quarter of a century after the political transition Hungarians can finally take substantial measures against the misuse of public funds.

The aim is to gain the support of decision-makers with influence on legislation, and the broadest possible non-governmental cooperation for this initiative, overwriting political lines.

The programme makes recommendations primarily in the areas of party and campaign financing, public procurement, asset declarations, conflict of interest/revolving door, the management of national assets, and the rule of law.

Sándor Léderer, director of K-Monitor stated: “The country and the legislation have changed significantly over the past 25 years, but now breakthrough has been achieved in the fight against corruption.” 

TI and its partners argue that corruption causes immeasurable economic and societal damages; its elimination therefore needs to be in the interest of all political actors. No party striving to get into the parliament can afford to ignore this problem said Sándor Léderer.

Tamás Bodoky, the editor in chief of the portal reported: “The website atlatszo.hu is receiving reports uncovering wrongdoing linked to the election campaign.” He added that all substantiated reports will be dealt with using the tools of fact finding and investigative journalism.

Of course political corruption is not restricted to Hungary but is European wide. Surveys in Spain have shown that around 90 per cent of people questioned believed both their politicians and political system was corrupt. It is a perception the EU urgently needs to tackle across all member States.

(The above article was published in the London Progressive Journal on March 21 2014)

FIDESZ WILL SPEND MORE THAN TWICE THE LEGAL LIMIT IN HUNGARIAN ELECTION...AND GET AWAY WITH IT

The Hungarian General Election takes place on Sunday April 6. The spotlight has been on the far right party, Jobbik, which will be fielding a national list at the polls and says it is seeking an outright victory (pun intended).

However it is extremely unlikely that Jobbik would win but instead the odds are Fidesz will be returned to power. The left alliance led by the socialists MSzP and including the country’s liberals obviously is fighting to prevent that from happening. Yet a victory for the left would be to slash Fidesz’s current massive majority, which has seen it abuse Hungary’s democratic and civil rights and indeed to mimic Jobbik in its populist statements and actions. This has caused outrage in Washington and EU capitals.

Hungary’s general election campaign might be free but it will be far from fair. This has been highlighted this week after a report from Transparency International Hungary (TI), K-Monitor and Atlatszo.hu. They have united their efforts to find out how much parties are spending on their campaigns.

At their press conference on Monday in Budapest, they have introduced the website kepmutatas.hu (Hungarian for hypocrisy), where the public can continuously follow how much each party is paying for their campaign.

In a statement they pointed out: “It is already blatantly obvious that the Fidesz-KDNP party (with the help of the Civil Alliance Forum /CÖF/ and the government) will exceed twice the campaign spending limit of one billion forints prescribed by legislation. However, it looks like this excessive spending will go without any consequences.”

The election campaign has over two weeks to run but it is already clear that until the end of February, Fidesz spent more than 2 billion, the left-wing Kormányváltás (Hungarian for ’change of government’) 680 million, while Jobbik 650 million and LMP 310 million forints. The TI, K-Monitor and Atlatsozo.hu  figures do not contain all the spending of the parties occurred in March, so numbers will grow further in the run-up to the elections.

The spending limit set by law is 1 billion. TI’s programme for the assessment of campaign spending examines all means of campaigning, by monitoring public billboards, media advertisements, direct marketing tools (postal letters, SMS messages, phone calls, personal contact), and also party events. The anti-corruption organisation also calculated the expenditure of parties on their campaign team, opinion polls, and promotional items.

TI says it is clear from the figures currently available that Fidesz has already exceeded the legally prescribed limit, if the governmental and civil advertisements supporting the party are taken in to account. Parties may spend 1 billion forints on their campaigns, of which 700 million forints may come from public funds.

The campaign of governing parties is also aided by advertisements of pseudo NGOs (the so-called GO-NGOs), such as the Civil Alliance Forum (CÖF), which on paper is independent from any political force, but is in reality blatantly campaigning in support of Fidesz. According to TI’s calculations, the price of CÖF’s campaign between November and February amounted to 570 million forints.

Not only pseudo-non-governmental organisations, but also the government itself is sponsoring Fidesz’s campaign. The government gave Fidesz a gift of 540 million forints, as this is how much the 'Hungary is performing better' campaign and the campaign advertising the utility price cuts that lay the foundations of the governing party’s election campaign have cost since November.

The billboards commissioned by GO-NGOs and government have so far cost altogether about 1 billion forints. As these support directly the campaign of Fidesz, TI added this amount to the party’s campaign expenses. But even without the campaign costs of CÖF and the government, Fidesz-KDNP's campaign costs have already reached 940 million, which is very close to the legally allowed limit of 1 billion, even though elections are still more than one month away.

Miklós Ligeti, TI's Legal Director stated: The new legislation on campaign financing is not suitable for eliminating campaign-related corruption. The parliament managed to adopt regulations, which the parties do not even have to break, if they want to spend unchecked on their campaigns".

Ligeti explained, the new legislation that entered into effect on January 1st does not prohibit the outsourcing of the campaign, that is, it does not deal with the spending of NGOs with close ties to parties, and does not limit government campaigning in any way. Under the legislation, the tariffs of public billboards do not need to be disclosed, which immensely contributes to the lack of transparency in campaign finance. Political advertisements in electronic media are free of charge, a step forward TI would theoretically welcome, but the way this regulation is put into practice annuls all its advantages. There are signs that commercial TV channels do not want to deal with the advertisements of political parties (with one major commercial channel only broadcasting government advertisements), and in addition, public media is heavily biased towards the government parties.

A further incomprehensible element of the regulation on campaign financing is that while independent electoral candidates - rightly - have to account for all public subsidies to the last forint, and if unsuccessful, will have to repay these, political parties have no such obligation. As TI warned several times in the past, there is a possibility that several parties only participate in the election to gain access to the generous allowance ensured by the state. For parties to have a nationwide candidate list, they need to collect 500 signatures in each of the 27 constituencies, and in return they are entitled to almost 149 million forints in public subsidies, which amount - depending on the recommendations collected – may climb as high as 600 million forints. In addition, the Hungarian Court of Auditors does not investigate the spending of unsuccessful 'sham parties' ex officio, but only in reported cases. The only positive element of the new legislation on campaigning is that the tariffs of political advertisements in the print media are made public.

So far, the experience with TI’s campaign monitoring suggests that Fidesz makes the most use of the loopholes of the campaign financing regulation. As a result, TI believes that the elections will be free, but not fair on many points.

And of course the free does not apply in the financial sense.

(One Forint is equal to around 0.0027 Sterling, 0.0032 euro and 0.0047 US$)

(The above article was published in the London Progressive Journal on March 18 2014)

BULGARIA ELECTIONS: WIDESPREAD ABUSE BUT HOPE

I set off to Bulgaria after being selected by the Party of European Socialists to be part of the 100 plus team from all across the EU to monitor the General Election on Sunday. The president of PES, Sergei Stanishev, who is a former prime minister of Bulgaria and leader of the Bulgarian Socialist Party, had appealed for observers because of the very real fears of vote manipulation and vote buying by the GERB party that resigned from government after violent mass street protests against austerity measures, rising electricity prices and corruption in February.

The OSCE (Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights) also sent around 200 observers. Other groups such as Transparency International had sent up an election abuse monitoring unit and had observers at polling stations. The presence of these observers made major news headlines in Bulgaria. We were all officially registered with the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry and had stamped passes that granted us major powers within the polling stations.

I finally arrived in Sofia late Friday afternoon and meet up with other arrivals from France, Brussels, Greece and Holland for the coach trip to our hotel. We were greeted by Nikola Mitov who is the BSP’s director of international affairs.

On Saturday the work began. There was a briefing session for English speaking observers with a detailed talk on the voting law, polling station procedures with numerous forms to be filled in. If anybody enters the polling station with a gun we have to note it on the form!

Around 13.00 I headed off to Kyunstendil, about 90 kms from Sofia with a snow covered mountain backdrop. My driver – interpreter Georgi stopped at the BSP party headquarters at Dupritsa which was in the same 100km wide constituency. We had lunch with the number two candidate, Ivan Ibrishimov who on Sunday was elected as the BSP’s second MP, the local party chairman Stanislav Pavlov, who is also number four on the list plus some activists.

As we had lunch news came in that 350,000 fake ballot papers had been discovered by police after a raid on a printing works owned by a GERB councillor. The councillor told the media it was not anything to worry about! On to Kyunstendil where we met the district chairman and former mayor Valentine Volvo and were briefed on polling day strategy.

The Roma gypsies are the most likely to sell their votes for cash or beer and food. One scam is a gypsy gang leader sits in a car near the polling station. He already has a ballot paper stamped with the first of the two stamps a legal vote requires. A Roma comes by takes the ballot paper from him which is already marked. He then presents his identity card, receives another stamped ballot paper which when in the polling booth he puts in his pocket and deposits the voting paper he was given into the box after it has received the second stamp. He then takes his ballot paper out to the gang leader, who takes it from him, fills it in and gives it to the next bought voter. Georgi says this is called the Indian Scam but nobody could tell me why. It is possible these illegal blank votes were for the vote buying operation.

So to polling day and back to Dupritsa. The day didn’t get off well with the local election commission advising it had changed the supervising teams and hence many wouldn’t have documentation. Sent an urgent email to Transparency International who started an investigation. News came in that two polling station in a complex of nine had refused to give the second stamp on the ballot papers which made them invalid. We went to investigate but of course once we arrived and showed our official papers the voting procedures were fully adhered to.

However there were three Roma polling stations at the same school complex and there the atmosphere was very different. There were groups of Roma supporting the former ruling party GERB openly intimidating those coming to vote in the corridor. They bragged to Georgi they could vote when and how they wanted acting in an aggressive manner when we monitored what was going on. There was no obvious sign of vote buying and nothing you could point out to officials so we went back several times to make the point we were hadn’t been scared off and we were watching.

Then a curious case. A report that 60 ballots had been accepted but not recorded at a school polling station. By the time we arrived so too had officials from the commission. The number was in fact 47 and the chairwoman said she had put a youth in charge of the polling who apparently did not realize you had to cross off voters names and get them to sign. The chairwoman argued it was an unfortunate mistake. The ballots couldn’t be taken out of the box as nobody knew which they were so when the final tally was completed after the polls closed there would be 47 votes too many. I shall return to this is a moment

Whilst we were there a man on crutches complained to us that none of the three polling stations at this complex would give him a ballot paper. He was told to enter the polling room with us at which point he was promptly given a ballot paper; they didn’t even make a show of searching for his name: then all the procedures were correctly followed. Later the Election Commission ruled the chairwoman had deliberately added the 47 votes for GERB and she was sanctioned.

There were no signs of vote buying at the Roma centres but by mid-afternoon the news reports told of three men having been arrested for committing the crime that day. Also by late afternoon when Roma usually crowded their polling stations they were empty with reports they simply had not turned out. TV stated that Turkish Bulgarians who normally flood across the border from Turkey to support Ataka (the Islam Party whose name translates as Attack and according to electoral law should be illegal) had seemingly not travelled either. Something was clearly in play here. Feedback from the local Roma said they’d be threatened by GERB so they stayed at home.

In the Kyunstendil constituency there were around 100 cases of voting abuse by GERB.  In one polling station the GERB observer smashed the photocopying machine preventing the copying of the end of poll protocol showing the result. He only delayed but couldn’t prevent the inevitable. As voters swung to the BSP and they took two of the four seats, up one, these abuses will not be contested. We didn’t meet sitting BSP MP Maya Manolova as after the polls closed rioting broke out in Sofia and she was ordered to the capital.

Obviously my experiences were just a snap shot of the election process across Bulgaria. Was the polling process carried out in a manner that we would find acceptable: no it wasn´t. However it was clear the chairpersons of the polling station committees were very concerned at our presence: one even protesting that everything she did was in order. Indeed when we were present everything was in order but it is clear in some cases there had been irregularities before we arrived and they may have started again as soon as we left. It is important though to state that probably because of the international observers these elections were far more free and fair than in the past. There is hope now that as GERB is unlikely to continue in government further advances can be made in establishing free and fair elections. At the next election it is vital the observers are allowed to return and in even greater numbers because it is quite clear the fact the world was watching did have a beneficial impact on this troubled democracy.

Photo: l to r: Georgi, Dr Ivan Ibrishimov (now BSP MP), David Eade, Stanislav Pavlov and activist.

(The above article appeared in the London Progressive Journal on May 14 2013 with a version in the New People on May 17 2013)

THE RIGHT WIN BUT THE LEFT TRIUMPH

Spain has had a year of elections which saw the centre right Partido Popular first sweep the board in the town hall and some regional elections last May before winning an outright majority at the general election at the end of November. This left just two regional government elections to go and both were held on March 25 in Andalucía and Asturias. However all eyes were on Andalucía because it is the largest region in Spain and has also been a socialist stronghold for 30 years: if the government in Sevilla fell into the Partido Popular’s hands then their victory would be complete.

I made the observation after the November general election that although the PP now formed the new government without having to rely on any other party it was a victory built on sand. The country wanted changed and the vote of the ruling socialists, PSOE, collapsed. However the voters did not swing behind the centre right, the majority simply abstained. Hence Mariano Rajoy as prime minister has not enjoyed a lengthy honeymoon with the voters: indeed it was more of a one-night stand. Spain recently had a general strike over the labour reforms just days after the Andalucía general election and a day before “the toughest budget in Spain’s history”. Health and education reforms, or vicious cuts as the left opposition have dubbed them, are on their way: expect a year of anger and discontent.

The true anger and discontent right now though is in the leadership of the Partido Popular. The centre right party did emerge for the first time as the largest in MP terms in Andalucía after the regional election but it will not govern. The combined forces of PSOE and the far left Izquierda Unida easily outgun them but what is more Andalucía didn’t swing to the right it went firmly still further to the left.

The PP managed to grasp defeat from the jaws of victory. Its election strategy and campaign were at fault; it lacked political humility, it was arrogant in its announcements and many of its messages simply lacked credibility.

The result was the centre right party lost the support of 410,000 people in Andalucía between the November general election and Andalucía polling day. Yes it increased its MPs from 47 to 50 but 55 is the absolute majority in the Andalucía parliament. PSOE took 47, the real winners in this election was Izquierda Unida who doubled its MPs to 12, taking the left alliance to 59: well over the victory line.

Here are some key statistics:

The socialists bounced back from their general election hammering in Andalucía were they lost 400,000 votes and 14 seats to be practically tying with the PP.

The PSOE and IU coalition won over 400,000 more votes than the right.

Andalucía has 771 municipalities: PSOE won 554 of them. The socialists won 72 per cent of the villages and towns and seven out of the eight provinces in Andalucía.

Add the PSOE and IU votes and they won in 640 out of the 771 municipalities and 83 per cent of the villages and towns. The left’s combined vote won in all eight provinces.

PSOE won almost three times more municipalities than the PP and when the vote is added to the IU’s the left were the victors in three out of every five.

The startling result is that the socialists have bounced back from defeat in record time and with the far left IU has gone on to triumph in Spain’s largest region. Indeed if you look at the electoral map of Andalucía it is clearly redder than ever before: socialism certainly isn’t dead in southern Spain.

(A version of the above article appeared in The Morning Star on Thursday April 12 2012)

SPAIN’S LAST ELECTION

It has been a long election season in Spain and a very painful one for the socialist party PSOE although it has to be said that the far-left Izquierda Unida has benefitted at their expense.

It all started last May when the centre right Partido Popular swept to power in numerous town halls and regions. The general election was held at the end of November and the PP carried on their anticipated charge ousting PSOE from power and securing an overall majority. The third and last election comes this month in Andalucía and whilst the opinion polls point to yet another PP rout there is cause for optimism in left of centre ranks.

The general election was to be held this month but the outgoing PSOE premier José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero moved it forward to November. Traditionally Spain and Andalucía poll on the same day but the socialist administration in Sevilla decided to stick with the original date: a decision which may yet pay off.

When the PP swept to power in November I observed that voters hadn’t swung behind the centre right party: its vote rose by just 4.69 per cent. What had happened is that four million of them, or 15.11 per cent, abandoned PSOE. Some voted for the IU, some for other smaller parties, some switched to the PP but the vast majority just didn’t bother to vote at all.

The reality check came for the PP on Sunday February 19 when there were major demonstrations in 58 cities, including thousands marching through the centre of Madrid, all protesting against the government’s draconian new employment laws. Ironically the Partido Popular was holding a triumphalist congress in Sevilla ahead of the Andalucía regional government elections The PP Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy was forced to rush on to the stage to defend his government’s changes to these laws. However the rapid disenchant with his administration is not going to go away. Spain’s two main unions, the UGT and CC.OO, have called a general strike for March 29 just days after the Andalucía elections and the day before Rajoy’s government presents its first budget which will hit workers, their families and the disadvantaged still further.

So can PSOE ride on the back of this growing public anger with its new government? The opinion polls suggest they can and they are. The problem is the PP has built up such a lead it might not be possible to close it in the days to come.

In October of last year, just ahead of the general election, the PP recorded its highest positive response with opinion pollsters since the 2008 Andalucía elections with the support of 49.4 per cent of voters. In contrast PSOE was at its lowest on 34.8 per cent.

However since then the polls are moving in PSOE’s favour although they are still way behind. The February sounding puts the PP on 45.2 per cent (down 4.2 per cent) whilst PSOE moves to 36.9 per cent (up 2.1 per cent). If that swing continues to polling day then the result could be far closer than at first envisaged.

On the February figures it is estimated that the PP will win between 54 and 57 seats. PSOE would lose power with between 44 and 47 seats. The only other party likely to pick up any seats is the far left Izquierda Unida with 8.4 per cent of the vote giving it seven to eight seats.

Yet if voters are moving back to PSOE then the gap between the parties will close and whilst the PP might win the most seats it might not have sufficient to take power if the ruling PSOE forms a coalition with the IU.

One other slither of encouragement for PSOE comes in the valuation by voters of the party’s respective leaders. The PSOE leader and current president of Andalucía José Antonio Griñán gets a favouring level of 4.6 out of 10 from voters. In contrast the PP leader is behind on 4.5 and he also trails Pilar González of the Partido Andalucista on 4.7 and Diego Valderas of the IU on 4.6.

Much hope for a socialist revival in Europe is being pinned on Hollande in the French presidential election over the end of April and the start of May. However if PSOE, may be with the support of Izquierda Unida, can hold power in Andalucía then perhaps people will rightly say the fight back started here.

DATELINE MARCH 26 2012 - ANDALUCÍA SWINGS TO THE LEFT

The centre right Partido Popular’s election material called for change – after all Andalucía had been ruled by the socialists for 30 years. The voters agreed: except instead of swinging to the right as in the Rajoy and Arenas game plan – they moved to the far left.

Yes the PP was the largest party on 50 seats but they were swamped by the combined forces of the left on 59 with over 50 per cent of the vote.

What happened on Sunday was that the PP’s vote collapsed to 40.66 per cent (50 seats) whilst PSOE rose from 36.9 to 39.53 (47 seats). However the real victors in many ways were the far-left Izquierda Unida which won 12 seats (up six) with 11.35 per cent of the vote. Hence those dissatisfied PSOE voters instead of switching to the centre right moved to the far left. It appears that in left wing Andalucía a Partido Popular government was just too much change and it is arguable that the party of the smug Arenas has peaked and will now decline back to its natural base.

(Above article was published in the London Progressive Journal on March 23 2012 and versions have appeared in other publications).

THE FOURTH FORCE IN SPANISH POLITICS: VOTO EN BLANCO

Following the recent Spanish general election there is now a fourth force in the nation’s politics. After the new party of government, the Partido Popular, comes the outgoing socialist PSOE, the far-left Izquierda Unida and then the Voto en Blanco – those who submitted blank votes as a symbol of protest.


En masse the PSOE supporters abandoned their party with 4.4 million previous voters rejecting the socialists. The majority abstained, others stayed on the left with Izquierda Unida, which rose from two to 11 seats and its vote hit 6.9 per cent – but – and this is the key point only 550,000 of those dissatisfied voters went to the PP. Hence it wasn’t a mass endorsement of the Partido Popular but a mass rejection of PSOE.

It is in to this scenario that Voto en Blanco entered with the blank votes accounting for the fourth largest amount in the general election. In the election for Spain’s Upper House, the Senado, there were 1,263,120 which equates to 5.37 per cent of the electorate and also three times as many as registered a blank vote in 2008 when it was 2.06 per cent. In the Lower House, Congreso, the blank votes reached 333,095 or 1.37 per cent against 1.11 in 2008.

To the total of blank votes – 1,596,215 – has to be added the sum of 97,706 for the political group Escaños en Blanco. Their electoral promise was that if their candidates were elected to parliament they would not take their seats as a protest and rejection of the unjust Spanish political system which they claim is anti-democratic.

The result of the Voto en Blanco, along with those who abstained and submitted spoiled votes, shows the overall discontentment of the Spanish people with the political system and the offerings of the various parties. The increase in this protest vote has been notable but it is insufficient because it was overshadowed by the immense wave of rejection of PSOE.

This was the major tendency in the 2011 general election, with voters turning their backs on outgoing premier José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and his successor Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba. They were humiliated and suffered the worst result for the socialists since the death of Franco and now PSOE needs to enter a period of deep reflection.

Traditionally and importantly the Voto en Blanco represents a frontal protest by those citizens against the various electoral offerings presented by the parties but, and this is the important part, who refuse to renounce their right to vote and be part of the democratic process. A right earned by Spanish society through force and bloodshed.

(The above article appeared in the London Progressive Journal on Saturday December 3 2011)