Independent party of small farmers, farm workers and the bourgeoisie

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The Független Kisgazda-, Földmunkás- és Polgári Párt (German: Independent Party of Small Farmers, Agricultural Workers and the Bourgeoisie ) was the rallying party of the civil rights in Hungary in the period immediately after the Second World War ; it was re-established in 1988. However, the party in post-communist Hungary was no longer able to build on its old successes (1945: 57 percent; under communist pressure in 1947: 15.4 percent). During the 1990s it received 10 percent of the vote or less, in the parliamentary elections on April 7 and 21, 2002 it fell to 0.8 percent and lost its seats in parliament. A specific problem of the political peasant movement in Hungary is the traditionally sharp distinction between town and country.

Old FKgP before 1949

The FKgP was founded in 1930 by Ferenc Nagy and Zoltán Tildy to represent the interests of small farmers. A central concern was also to improve the standard of living of agricultural workers and the urban middle class. Last but not least, the policy of the FKgP aimed at a large-scale land reform that was supposed to abolish the large landed property structures that still existed. The FKgP was oriented towards Christianity in its ideological orientation.

From the 1930s to the 1940s, the FKgP was an opposition party within the authoritarian system of government under Reich Administrator Admiral Miklós Horthy .

In 1945 the FKgP provided three members of the democratic counter-government in Debrecen , which the Soviet Union established in Hungarian territory liberated from German occupation.

In the parliamentary elections in November 1945 , the FKgP won a clear majority of the electorate, while Communists and Social Democrats each had to be content with 14 percent of the vote. The party leader Zoltán Tildy then became prime minister. His successor in office was Ferenc Nagy. The republic was proclaimed in 1946, and Zoltán Tildy became the first president on February 2, 1946. Although the Communist Party only had 17 members of parliament at the time, the Soviet Union pushed through a socialist government. In the parliamentary election in Hungary in 1947 , which was under massive pressure from the occupying power, the FKgP still achieved 15.4 percent. Even at the time when the communist claim to power was almost completely asserted in 1947, the FKgP was initially able to provide Lajos Dinnyés as prime minister. Prior to this, Prime Minister Nagy, President Tildy and Béla Varga , the chairman of parliament, had been removed from their offices. The chairman of the FKgP was the pro-communist István Dobi , who in 1948 succeeded Dinnyés as Prime Minister and in 1949 joined the party of the Hungarian working people .

1949 and 1956, dissolution and ban of the FKgP

In 1949 the FKgP was integrated into the Popular Front , which was led by the Party of Hungarian Working People . The proclamation of the People's Republic after the parliamentary elections of 1949 was followed by the (informal) dissolution of the FKgP.

During the Hungarian popular uprising in October 1956, the FKgP briefly revived. Tildy was accepted as an FKgP member in the people's government of Imre Nagy . After the popular uprising was suppressed by Warsaw Pact troops , the FKgP was officially banned in Hungary.

The FKgP since 1988

In 1988 the FKgP was re-established. In the first parliamentary elections after the end of communism, the FKgP received 11% of the vote in April 1990 and thus 44 parliamentary seats. This made the FKgP the third strongest party in this first Hungarian parliament, after the Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF) and the Alliance of Free Democrats (SzDSz). The FKgP was a member of the first cabinet of the József Antall government (MDF), but resigned from the government in 1991 after a political dispute over the return of expropriated land. A prominent figure in the party was József Torgyán .

Since 2002 the FKgP has not been represented in the Hungarian parliament. Even in the parliamentary elections of April 2006, the FKgP, which now cooperated with the MIÉP and Jobbik , could no longer succeed.

Chairwoman of the FKgP 1945–1949 and since 1988

Zoltan Tildy 1945-1947
István Dobi 1947-1949
István Prepeliczay 1988-1990
Ferenc József Nagy 1988-1991
Ferenc József Nagy + József Torgyán 1991
József Torgyán 1991-2002
Miklós Réti since 2002

Election results

year be right percent Mandates
1990 576.315 11.37 44
1994 476.272 8.82 26th
1998 597.820 13.15 48
2002 ? 0.8 -
2006 ? ? -

literature

  • Andreas Schmidt-Schweizer: The Independent Small Farmers Party in present-day Hungary: An attempt at a political "revival". In: Südosteuropa Mitteilungen, 32 (1992) 4, pp. 281-301.

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