MDF campaign: a CD, but no manifestos?

People are describing the MDF bugging affair as the biggest scandal in Hungary since the regime change, and there have been calls for a parliamentary commission of inquiry to be established to investigate the affair. But it would be a shame if the shock discoveries about the role of the security services were to overshadow the core of this issue: a failed campaign for the presidency of the Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF), according to Ervin Csizmadia, the director of the Dignity Political Analysis Centre.

Csizmadia Ervin © Szakács Barbara

The MDF bugging scandal has grown to unprecedented proportions. The earliest (somewhat biased) responses have already been made public, and there is a good chance that the affair will continue as all other such affairs have - raising passions without creating any space for reasoned discussion. It's been like this on several occasions in past years, and it would be surprising if it were different this time. We know how planned scandals work.

I don't want to follow this course. There is something else that needs to be discussed. The key fact is that the affair arose in connection with the campaign to elect a new president of the MDF, even if the leaked CD of telephone conversations with a private security company has overshadowed this fact. A party presidential election is a very serious matter - the Free Democrats have achieved their highest level of media exposure during party president campaigns in recent years, for example. This wasn't happening in the MDF, however, because Ibolya David has not had a real challenger within the party for many years. So it's astonishing that an unknown like Kornel Almassy "suddenly" emerged as a challenger. This 32-year-old's political career is stranger still.

The most striking aspect of this story was the complete absence of a political discussion in this campaign. Normally, two contenders will discuss their policies during a campaign - but there was no sign of this at all in the MDF race. There was no sign of a presidential campaign within the MDF. The candidates announced no programme, they weren't campaigning, and nor were there any visible differences of opinion, even though this is the basis for a fair political battle.

Whether in the press or on the MDF website, there are no signs of a substantive discussion. There are condemnations, even threats, of course, but no discussion. It's very different from the Free Democrat campaign - they, of course, have been washing their dirty linen in public for years, spoiling us with news of the internal battle between Fodor and Koka over the kinds of liberal alternative that should be on offer.

Let me clear, though, that the bugging scandal is closely related to the presidential campaign. In fact, this content-free campaign led directly to the bugging affair. Why weren't the two candidates arguing with each other? Why weren't they debating policy? There is an official MDF explanation for this, which many commentators appear to be taking at face value. Officially, the reason there was no Free Democrat-style public debate was that it was clear from the beginning that Almassy wasn't really and MDF man at all, but a Fidesz front, financed by Fidesz-linked businessmen. Clearly, runs the argument, there was no point in engaging a false candidate in a reasoned debate. That's fine, so long as the whole affair is an internal MDF matter.