Hungary steps out
Jan 3rd 2012, 15:45 by A.L.B. | BUDAPEST
THE symbolism was telling. Inside Budapest's Opera House, Hungary’s great and good were knocking back sparkling wine at a gala event to celebrate the inauguration of the country’s new constitution, which came into effect on January 1st. Outside, on Andrássy Avenue, tens of thousands of protestors demanded its withdrawal.
Brushing off the demonstrations, President Pal Schmitt hailed Hungary’s new "basic law" as a brave new dawn. It may well be, but probably not the kind that Hungary’s rulers are hoping for. As the blog Contrarian Hungarian reports, protestors are increasingly taking control of the streets. The Andrássy Avenue march was just the latest in a series of public actions against the government's growing autocratic tendencies and its relentless centralisation of power.
Monday’s protests were significant as well as symbolic. This was the first time that opposition parties—the Socialists, the Democratic Coalition and the green-liberal LMP—had joined forces with street activists. Peter Konya, leader of the Hungarian Solidarity Movement, welcomed what he called “the long absent co-operation between civil groups and parties of the democratic opposition”.
Gabor Ivanyi, a Methodist pastor, told the crowd that “There is no truth where laws are passed forcefully, without consultations, where people live in fear and where people are not equal.” Mr Ivanyi is one of 13 former dissidents and liberal politicians to have signed a letter calling for the European Union to intervene and protect Hungarian democracy.
Government officials deny that Hungarian democracy is in danger. How, they ask, can this be so when an enormous crowd is free to demonstrate outside the very building where they are celebrating? In 2010 the right-wing Fidesz party won a two-thirds parliamentary majority in a free and fair election, they argue, and the government is simply fulfilling its mandate of radical change and renewal.
But as the government brushes off requests from the EU, the IMF, the European Central Bank and the United States to reconsider key legislation that may be in breach of its international treaty obligations, such arguments sound increasingly unconvincing.
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