Hungarians Are Pissed Off at Their 'Illiberal' Government

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At the end of October, tens of thousands of Hungarians marched in Budapest against the government implementing its now notorious "internet tax." The plan was to make individual internet users pay 150 forints (60 cents) for every gigabyte of information they downloaded. The government backed down pretty quickly after ​protests, but the tax was just one bullet point on a long list of freedom-sapping legislation, so the protests continue.

Since 2010, Fidesz has introduced a raft of new laws chipping away press freedom and judiciary power, bringing Hungarians onto the streets several times. In December 2010, the Hungarian parliament introduced a law which said media companies who engage in "unbalanced coverage" can be fined. Fidesz also created a new media regulation body called the National Media and Info-communications Authority, whose members are elected by parliament. Amongst other powers, the Authority ​nominates the executives of all public media.

Fidesz also made changes to the Hungarian constitution in 2013 that set limits to the constitutional court's ability to investigate and overrule the parliament in the future. A statement at the time from the European commission said that the constitutional ​changes "raise concerns with respect to the principle of the rule of law," which is obviously quite a big concern to raise.

Under Fidesz, Hungary is heading away from democracy. Prime Minister Viktor Orban himself said in the summer that he wanted to scrap "liberal" democracy and build an "illiberal state"; Hungary should look away from the West and toward Russia, China, and Turkey for inspiration, he ​said. In terms of foreign policy, Orban is increasingly looking toward Russia as an ally, recently announcing that Russia's South Stream pipeline will run through Hungary, despite European ​objections.

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Unsurprisingly, the US is getting increasingly pissed off with Orban and Fidesz. In September Obama​ said Hungary was a country where "endless regulations and overt intimidation increasingly target civil society." Then in October, the charge d'affairs of the US embassy in Budapest announced that six members of the Hungarian government had been banned from entering the US for engaging in or benefitting from corruption. The head of Hungary's tax office, Ildiko Vida, admitted shortly afterwards that she was on the US list. Vida called it "a foul attack" and "murky accusations formulated as generalizations." Thousands ​protested demanding her resignation.

More than 10,000 were on the streets again yesterday to demand the resignation of the Prime Minister. The rallying calls, expressed on the Facebook event page, this time were: "say no to corruption; say no to excessive taxation; say no to current foreign policy; say yes to Europe and say yes to freedom."

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After the main rally was over, a few thousand remained in the square and refused to leave. People began pushing the police lines on the steps of the parliament. I saw one guy using a megaphone to tell people to push the police. Another guy shouted that he wanted to be let in to parliament. A few people got arrested, but the police managed to avoid going totally apeshit. The protestors didn't get very far and by the end, when both sides were exhausted, the whole thing looked a bit like a sweaty school photograph.

A couple of times during the evening, protestors compared the protests to the Hungarian revolution of 1956, when the Hungarian population rose up against their Stalinist government. The comparison may be a little overblown at this stage, and that revolution was brutally ​put down by a column of Soviet tanks and 30,000 soldiers. More contemporary protests in Hungary have led to genuine political change in the recent past. In 2006 when the then ruling Socialist government's prime minister was caught saying he'd lied on the economy in order to win elections, Budapest was ​roc​ked by violent riots demanding his resignation. The MSzP's (Hungarian Socialist Party) ratings plummeted and the PM was eventually forced to resign after another scandal a few years later.

Fidesz will be hoping that the protests come to nothing. Disenchanted with all of the main political parties, the people I spoke to said they were determined to make the changes they wanted to see in Hungary by continuing to take to the streets.

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