Hungary: Magyar government marks one hundred days in office
The Hungarian government led by Prime Minister Péter Magyar has been in office for one hundred, turbulent, days. Magyar and his Tisza Party, which holds a two-thirds majority in parliament, came to power in May with the promise to restore the rule of law and democracy in Hungary and ruthlessly expose the corrupt dealings of the previous government led by Viktor Orbán. Hungarian commentators take stock.
Following in Orbán’s footsteps
Things haven't changed much in Hungarian politics, Attila Tibor Nagy, a political scientist, comments in Index:
“The leader-centric principle has persisted, it's just that the leader is now called Péter Magyar instead of Viktor Orbán. We are still a long way off from a style of government that curbs the tendency towards autocratic rule, genuinely engages in compromise, significantly involves society and substantially curtails executive power. ... Domestically, the hundred days that have now come to an end were dominated more by the consolidation of the new political leader's power and the quest to satisfy his thirst for recognition.”
From power factory to show factory
Péter Magyar's main focus is his media presence, political scientist Gábor Török writes in his blog:
“One of the Orbán government's key strategies boiled down to what I have termed the 'power factory' and 'power production'. Its primary aim was to exercise, preserve and reproduce political power. Judging by its practices, the Magyar government, by contrast, seems much more like a media or 'show' factory where everything revolves around staging. ... While the former focused on power and decision-making, the latter focuses far more on popularity, public staging and media presence.”
The budget will tell the real story
The contents of the draft budget due to be presented shortly will reveal the Magyar government's true intentions, says Portfolio:
“It will not only show what the government led by Péter Magyar intends to spend money on, and how much. It will also shed light on how the cabinet envisages the role of the state: in which areas it intends to take on more responsibility, from which areas it plans to withdraw, how it intends to strike a new balance in the budget, what the cost will be, and who will bear it. The autumn months will therefore be the time when it truly becomes clear whether the Tisza government is overhauling the state or merely attempting to run the same state more efficiently.”