Thursday, 19 November 2015

How the Hungarian government promotes itself and how it hides behind voters

The current Hungarian government is, frankly put, not worth a sack of poop. The government spends about 65 billion Hungarian Forints (roughly £155 million) on the state TV channels (M1, M2, Duna, M4). The interesting bit is that M1 has been transformed recently into a news channel. Well, guess who the news cover now 24/7? Yepp, it's the government all the way down baby, nothing else.

The other fun thing currently in vogue in Hungarian politics is to say: 'Well, the voters gave us 2/3rds majority, so whatever I do, it is what the people want me to do!' A bit of corruption: 'The people want me to do this.' A bit of lying: 'That's what the voters gave me license to do.' Being cruel towards refugees: 'Hey, it's the voters, not me!'
This is the main line taken by the PM and other prominent members of the government, and this is how they defend themselves from any criticism. When they are fairly confident that they can manipulate people the way they want they hold what they call a 'national consultation'. This consists of every registered voter receiving a leaflet with a number of question organized thematically. We can send this back to a government office. The whole process is secretive, there is no transparency, no one overseeing how the incoming replies are evaluated. The questions are of course put so that they prime people towards the answers which suit the governments main line. This is also done out of tax money of course.
In the last such 'consultation' people had the chance to answer questions about immigrants. (The leaflet did not really ask anyone about refugees or asylum seekers.) The questions all stank, but of course there are enough devotees and silly folks to send in a lot of opinions in line with the governments opinion. About 1,1 million people - allegedly - sent in such replies. This is less than 20% of the voting population. But ever since then whatever disgusting thing the government does at the borders, they justify it by this vote.

In the light of the above described I have two practical suggestions. I would be happy if either of them would get accepted.
1) Let's ask people whether they are happy that the government spends their tax money on promoting themselves. Of course at least 20% of the voters aren't happy with this. Accordingly, they should offer the option to pay back my shares from taxes (a few thousand Forints per year) which goes towards supporting the state TV (and radio) channels. Or
2) Let the voters decide what the government should use their money for. I would be super happy if my money would go either towards the proper nutritious and healthy feeding of poor children, or towards financing research at higher ed institutions, or towards creating a welcoming and effective settlement programme for refugees. I also wouldn't mind if my money would be divided between these three goals. But I do mind it being taken away for propaganda purposes and for presenting facts in a tendentious way.

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