Liberal Party (Hungary)
The Liberal Party (Hungarian Szabadelvű Párt ) of the Kingdom of Hungary was founded on March 1, 1875 by Kálmán Tisza . The group to the left of the center, also known as the Freedom Party , was a reservoir for the lower nobility, the urban bourgeoisie, state employees and business people. It emerged from the political group around Ferenc Deák , that is, the political forces in Hungarian politics advocating the Austro-Hungarian settlement . The Liberal Party provided the Hungarian Prime Minister and most of the cabinet members without interruption until 1905 .
It represented a policy oriented towards the interests of the upper Magyar social classes and was neither interested in democratization nor in equal rights for the other nationalities in the countries of the Hungarian crown , although these made up about half of the population. Rather, it was the party of the Magyarization . This was made possible by a reactionary right to vote , which only allowed the privileged part of the population to vote. In 1913 only 7.7% of the total population were eligible to vote or were allowed to hold public offices.
Kálmán's son István Tisza took over the party as a political heir and, like his father, became Hungarian Prime Minister for many years.
In the Hungarian parliamentary elections in January 1905, the Liberal Party lost its majority for the first time since the compromise in 1867; the Independence Party led a coalition with a majority in the Budapest Diet . This led to the Hungarian crisis in 1905 . About a third of the MPs of the Liberal Party, which was committed to dualism, moved to the coalition camp, which thus had a three-quarters majority. In response, the party disbanded on April 11, 1906, and Tisza and László Lukács founded the National Labor Party in 1910 as the successor organization .
Election results in parliamentary elections
| choice | MPs | percent |
|---|---|---|
| 1875 | 333 | 80.43% |
| 1878 | 239 | 58% |
| 1881 | 235 | 57% |
| 1884 | 234 | 56.52% |
| 1887 | 263 | 63% |
| 1892 | 243 | 58.84% |
| 1896 | 290 | 70.21% |
| 1901 | 277 | 67.07% |
| 1905 | 159 | 38.50% |
Individual evidence
- ↑ Wolfdieter Bihl : The way to collapse. Austria-Hungary under Charles I (IV.) . In: Erika Weinzierl , Kurt Skalnik (Ed.): Austria 1918-1938: History of the First Republic . Graz / Vienna / Cologne 1983, Volume 1, pp. 27–54, here p. 44.
- ^ Eduard Winkler : Suffrage reforms and elections in Trieste 1905-1909. An analysis of political participation in a multinational urban region of the Habsburg monarchy. Verlag Oldenbourg, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-486-56486-2 , pp. 93f.