Union of Free Democrats (Hungary)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Szabad Demokraták Szövetsége
(SZDSZ)
Association of Free Democrats
Logo of the SZDSZ
Party leader Viktor Szabadai
founding November 13, 1988
Headquarters Budapest IX , Ráday utca 50
Youth organization SZDSZ Új Generáció
Parliament seats
0/386
( 2010 )
International connections Liberal International (until 2011)
European party ELDR
EP Group ALDE
Website www.szdsz.hu

The Union of Free Democrats ( Hungarian : Szabad Demokraták Szövetsége - SZDSZ ) was a liberal political party in Hungary . After the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, it was the second most powerful political force after the Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF). Between 1994 and 1998 and between 2002 and 2008 it formed the governing coalition together with the Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP).

She was also represented in the European Parliament , where she belonged to the European Liberal, Democratic and Reform Party (ELDR). In the course of a rapid decline, however, from 2010 it was no longer even represented in the Hungarian Parliament . The party, which had long since been completely marginalized by splits and members fleeing, announced its dissolution in 2013 after the remaining real estate debts had been settled.

history

Headquarters of the SZDSZ at Gizella út 36, Budapest XIV (until 2010)

The SZDSZ was founded in 1988 as a party opposing the government under the MSZMP in Hungary. In 1990 it became the strongest opposition party with 23.83% of the vote. In 1994 she achieved 17.88% of the vote and formed a government coalition with the MSZP .

In the parliamentary elections in 1998, the party reaped severe voter losses, from which it was unable to recover in the last elections in 2002 and thus only received 5.5% of the vote, which meant 20 seats in parliament. She then formed the government together with the Hungarian Socialist Party . In the 2004 European elections , the party recovered slightly and received 7.7% of the votes cast and thus two seats in the European Parliament . In the 2006 elections , the party was able to increase to 6.5% of the vote and again win 20 of the 386 seats in parliament. The coalition with the socialists was initially continued as a result of the election result.

Decline and right turn

After the crisis-ridden SZDSZ missed re-entry into the European Parliament in the European elections in June 2009 with only 2.2% of the vote, party leader Gábor Fodor offered to resign. In the divided party, Attila Retkes initially found a majority in favor of a course of unification, including the national liberal change of course he had called for, which was to ensure the survival of the party. As the newly elected party chairman, the cultural politician apologized to the voters for the mistakes of the past and called for them to become “a patriotic party that also represents the interests of Hungarians behind the borders”.

Retke's demand to resign from parliamentary group leader János Koka , who as the main opponent of the previous party leader Fodor was not uninvolved in the trench warfare, plunged the party into another ordeal within a few days. Numerous prominent members announced their withdrawal from the party, some did not want to support the right swing, others were bothered by the “disrespectful nature of the new party leader”. The former education minister Bálint Magyar resignedly announced in the daily newspaper Népszabadság : “The SZDSZ in its previous form has ceased to exist.” In August, Magyar and the long-time SZDSZ chairman Gábor Kuncze founded the new Liberal Civic Association (SZPE), which finally split the party was carried out.

With the announced turn to the right, Retkes had given up the party's left-wing liberal profile, but this remained primarily a tactical maneuver. On the grounds of wanting to prevent a two-thirds majority of “right-wing forces” (primarily the national conservative Fidesz ) in the upcoming parliamentary elections in April 2010 , Retkes agreed in early 2010 to form an electoral alliance with the equally ailing bourgeois Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF) after his attempt to create a three-party alliance with the involvement of the socialists, on which MDF had failed. There was also resistance in the MDF to the emergency community of the two once decisive turning parties and long-term opponents, and there were also withdrawals.

Nevertheless, the cooperation came about: While the SZDSZ put up individual candidates in the capital, it no longer competed nationwide with its own lists, but only with individual candidates on the MDF list. But Fidesz's landslide election victory was unstoppable. Even with combined forces, the two parties only got 2.66% of the vote, could not win a single seat and thus fell out of parliament.

The creeping dissolution

After the parliamentary election, the signs of disintegration in the SZDSZ intensified. The former parliamentary group leader Gábor Horn apologized for the brutal suppression of the unrest around the 50th anniversary of the Hungarian people's uprising in autumn 2006: “A decent liberal party should have managed not only to rid itself of its fears of what will become of this country Horn admitted that the police kicked defenseless people for no reason and beat Fidesz MP Máriusz Révész bloodily. Retkes resigned from his position as party chairman, and initially no successor was found.

It was not until July 16, 2010 that Viktor Szabadai, a representative of the younger generation, took the chair, trying to tie in with the left-liberal, cosmopolitan tradition of the party. But it was too late for a breath of fresh air. For the local elections in October 2010 only one candidate could be put up. After the parliamentary elections in the spring at the latest, even the most loyal party members had largely left the party, including the Mayor of Budapest, Gábor Demszky , who did not run again after 20 years in office. The loss of the last remaining left-liberal stronghold in Budapest to the once renegade István Tarlós , who is now close to Fidesz, plunged the SZDSZ completely into insignificance.

In February 2012, the much-noticed corruption scandal in Budapest's Erzsébet district ended with long prison terms, and former SZDSZ district councilor György Gál, arrested in 2008, was sentenced to eight and a half years in prison for embezzling state funds. The final demise of the party began when it became known that the party was over-indebted to the value of over 1 billion forints (approx. 3.3 million euros), a large part of which in the form of real estate loans with the Hungarian State Development Bank (MFB). As early as 2010, the party had to give up its traditional Budapest headquarters in District XIV . After their last party congress in June 2013, the party promised a proper settlement and was confident that it would be able to settle the debt with the property on which it was lent. The public speculation that the debt could fall back on the public purse, however, weighed six months before the parliamentary elections in 2014, the political fresh start of former SZDSZ politicians.

Party leader

Prominent members

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ www.szdsz.hu ( Memento of February 24, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ Retkes, the savior? In: Pester Lloyd . July 12, 2009, accessed December 4, 2013 .
  3. ↑ SZDSZ breaks. In: Pester Lloyd . July 18, 2009, accessed December 4, 2013 .
  4. ^ A b electoral alliance between conservative and liberal small party. In: The Standard . February 1, 2010, accessed December 4, 2013 .
  5. ↑ Late confession of the SZDSZ: “The police should not have taken revenge in autumn 2006”. In: Hungarian Voice. April 24, 2010, accessed December 4, 2013 .
  6. ↑ Újra van elnöke az SZDSZ-nek. In: Népszava . July 16, 2010, accessed December 5, 2013 (Hungarian).
  7. ^ New liberal party. (No longer available online.) In: The Budapest Times . January 21, 2013, archived from the original on December 13, 2013 ; accessed on December 5, 2013 .
  8. ^ Erzsébet-gate sweeps over the city. (No longer available online.) In: Budapest Sun Online . December 12, 2008, archived from the original on December 12, 2013 ; accessed on December 4, 2013 .
  9. ↑ The Hunvald case: MSZP and SZDSZ politicians receive a total of 10 years in prison. In: Hungarian Digest. February 27, 2012, accessed December 5, 2013 .
  10. ↑ Liberals leave a mountain of debt behind. (No longer available online.) In: Budapester Zeitung . November 22, 2013, archived from the original on December 13, 2013 ; Retrieved December 4, 2013 .
  11. ↑ Elszámoltunk. SZDSZ, December 12, 2008, archived from the original on October 1, 2013 ; Retrieved on December 5, 2013 (Hungarian): "Processing."
  12. ^ Unpaid loan provides latest political football. (No longer available online.) In: The Budapest Times . November 3, 2013, archived from the original on November 6, 2013 ; accessed on December 5, 2013 .