Ron Werber about the United Opposition: For God’s sake, convince the people that you can win
16 perc
2022.01.12. 07:44
The united opposition has one task in order the avoid its predecessor’s fate from 2014: focusing on real unity and show of strength through grassroots mobilization rather than misinterpreting the polls, claims Israeli campaign and communication strategist Ron Werber, who had worked for the Hungarian left in the 2000s, including Peter Medgyessy’s victorious campaign in 2002, which was the only time Orban was voted out of power. Werber, who was blamed by Fidesz for his alleged negative campaigning tactics, says that Fidesz’s main aim is to divert attention from the real referendum of 2022, which is whether or not Hungarians want political change – however, the opposition will not even get to asking the same question if they prioritise their own referendum topics and TV studio appearances and social-media video clips over real-life presence on the streets and real support to local candidates.
hvg360: The united opposition had been silent for more than two months, only appearing in public by late December. Apparently, the discussions are going as roughly as expected, with Peter Marki-Zay even claiming that some voices suggested that he should step down as candidate. From your experience, what is the hardest part about managing such a diverse coalition, and how problematic can disappearing from the streets be roughly 4 months before an election? What does it suggest that apparently, they could not unite behind Marki-Zay?
Ron Werber: The most difficult and most important part of managing such a diverse coalition is generating a truly genuine sense of partnership and mutual trust among the leaders of all the coalition groups. This is a preliminary condition for planning and implementing a successful campaign. Without it – there is no true collaboration and no efficient organizational structure. And without such a joint campaign organization – the United Opposition will not be able to mobilize enough voters throughout the country on elections day… which means victory will not be possible. So, they can go on and appear together in press conferences and TV studios, but that is not an indication of the necessary collaboration… and unfortunately it is often being used simply to create a façade which only hides the lack of real collaboration behind the scene. This is exactly what happened with Összefogás in 2014, when there was a total lack of mutual trust among the leaders of the various coalition groups… and therefore no real collaboration on the organizational level.
Some people may tell you that it is enough to have a local candidate in each electoral district, in order to generate winning local campaigns in the majority of the electoral districts. According to this approach, each local candidate can win on their own. But the reality is that unless the local candidate is very rich and has no financial limits, or is already popular in his district and seeks re-election – most other local opposition candidates cannot win without a significant support of a strong national organization. So… I hope that the top priority of the national campaign team of the united opposition, is indeed to intensively support its local candidates in the individual districts… because that is the only arena where elections can be won, and NOT in TV studios and press conferences, nor with beautiful campaign slogans and visuals in the social media.