Good ol' Hungary is at it again. Or at least Istvan Lovas is, one of the Brussels correspondents of the daily paper Magyar Nemzet (translating into Hungarian Nation), which is heavily leaning towards the current Fidesz-KDNP Government.
The story in a nutshell: Lovas wrote an e-mail to the journalists responsible for covering Hungarian events on international level, complaining that whereas they vividly depict the 'supposed' wrongdoings of the governing party, they don't inform the rest of the EU about any of the scandals the former governing party MSZP gets involved in. He ends his short rant by recommending the aforementioned media workers to eat shit.
You can see a Hungarian article on the scandal here:
The page also contains Lovas's e-mail in English.
Truth be told: Lovas is right that the MSZP's affairs don't get much publicity nowadays aboard. But I think he is wrong about the reasons for this. Lovas implies that the Hungarian correspondents prefer MSZP and other parties in contrast to Fidesz-KDNP. That's bollocks. When MSZP was the ruling party international media was quick to deliver news about their wrongdoings. This happened both when the police reacted in a brutal way to some of the anti-government protests that sprung up after the 1956 ceremonies. Same thing applies to the case of ex-president Gyurcsany when someone got a recording of him beginning a speech addressed to his fellow MSZP members at a party meeting beginning thus: "We fucked up. We were lying in the morning, at noon, and in the evening."
There are two reasons why no one writes about MSZP but there is some coverage of the work of Fidesz-KDNP. First, Hungary is a small, quite insignificant country. Not too many care about news about the shady activities and mistakes of one of the opposition parties. Second, whereas MSZP's activity mainly harms Hungarians, the current Fidesz-KDNP government openly engages in anti-EU populist propaganda, took on board a very risky economic strategy to ease the debt situation of the country (we still don't see whether it will work or not), and they introduced modifications in the constitution and media law which can be used to the advantages of the governing party. These four things both go against much of mainstream EU thinking and values, and also openly engage with many of the EU's leading thinkers and politicians in a hostile way. Thus, they are more interesting as news material, more controversial and get more attention.
Lovas's character has often come under attack during the last few years. I think he is one of those people who openly engage in party rhetoric and do not even take the trouble of trying to appear balanced or impartial. In fact, this attitude gains him much popularity among far-right readers and the xenophobes. I think what makes his case really bad is that he knows the rules of the game very well, but pretends not to, pretends to be honest.
People like him are no use for Hungary, and not even for his party. He is a great example of those who - instead of trying to work at developing the country, gaining new opportunities, opening up and winning over territories in economic fields - are just satisfied with barking as loud as they can around the quarters of their masters, securing whatever personal gain they can, not caring for the consequences.
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