Hungary’s main right-wing party faces split

BUDAPEST: Hardliners in Hungary’s main right-wing, dominant opposition party demanded yesterday that it return to its far-right roots, once notorious for racism and hostility to the EU, or face an internal split.

Jobbik recently adopted a milder right-wing ideology to challenge the rising nationalist, eurosceptic Fidesz party of Prime Minister Viktor Orban at the ballot box. But Orban scored a third straight landslide victory on April 8.

Orban’s triumph forced his rivals to rethink strategy and opened up rifts in several opposition parties. Laszlo Toroczkai, Jobbik’s vice-chairperson and a former far-right youth leader, said he had formed a new hardline platform and gave party leaders until June 23 to integrate it into policy or risk a break-up of Jobbik.

He said the platform entailed a return to goals pursued by the original Jobbik, including an end to immigration, stemming emigration of Hungarian youth to the wealthier west of the EU, a tough line on Hungary’s Roma minority and support for ethnic Hungarian minorities in neighbouring states.

“If they don’t deal with us, or reject the platform, that could even lead to a split, greatly damaging Jobbik,” he said.

Jobbik, formerly known for its anti-Semitism, xenophobia and ultra-nationalism, emerged as the strongest opposition party in April with 20% of the vote but failed to increase its seat share in parliament. Moderate party chairperson Gabor Vona accepted responsibility for the outcome and quit politics.

In the ensuing party leadership campaign, Toroczkai sought the top job against followers of Vona’s softer line and drew 46.2% at a party congress earlier this month against moderate Tamas Sneider’s winning 53.8%.

“That 46% obliges the party to engage with (our) platform, which extends to about half of the party’s members,” Toroczkai said.

Jobbik spokesperson Peter Jakab said the party considered Toroczkai’s platform “illegitimate”. “(Our) party congress decided Jobbik would continue on a path that led us to try and represent the widest possible cross-section of Hungarian society, regardless of political right or left, as a socially sensitive patriotic people’s party.”

Toroczkai said the Hungarian Guard, a uniformed vigilante group Jobbik founded and used to carry out intimidating patrols in Roma-populated towns, could serve as a model for future Jobbik politics. “There is definite demand from voters to deal with Roma problems. We will see what options we have.” –Reuters