Jozsef Sipos: a new direction after a major political defeat
The historian Jozsef Sipos, a social policy researcher for the Socialist Party, is one of the few party members who has condemned Ferenc Gyurcsany's strategy from the very beginning. Gyurcsany's approach failed on 9 March. We asked him what the Socialists can do in this situation.
hvg.hu:A few days have passed since the Socialists' party meeting. It looks like there will be far-reaching consequences. There is a coalition crisis. How do you see the situation?
The 9 March referendum dealt a heavy blow to the Socialists, the Free Democrats and the socialist-liberal government itself. Every honest left-winger has to take an honest look at this situation - otherwise we won't learn the necessary lessons. But gears shift slowly inside the Socialist Party and the government.
There was so much tension inside the party's membership by the time of Saturday's party meeting, that the prime minister and party leader could only escape by moving forwards. He acknowledged the mistakes he had made since spring 2006, and he also bowed to pressure from party activists by attacking the Free Democrats' "reform blah-blah". His speech won over most of those presents. But it wasn't very well put together. He spent too much time condemning the opposition, his coalition partner, intellectuals and the press. He was trying to minimise the extent of the responsibility borne by him and the the Socialist Party's other leaders. He couldn't offer an alternative programme.
hvg.hu: Where do we go from today's crisis? How could things unfold?
The only way forward is a complete renegotiation of the coalition agreement. This is the quickest and most effective way of resolving the government crisis. But for this, the leaders of the Free Democrats will have to admit that there is not enough social support for their forced neoliberal reform policies. This was clear in September 2006, but the parties of the governing coalition were not prepared to accept it.
The Socialists' leaders have to make the economic and political elites that stand behind the Free Democrats understand that any new coalition agreement has to reflect a left-wing view of social policy. That's the only way the ideological and political initiative could possibly be seized back from Fidesz. If the Free Democrats fail to understand this, then the Socialists will have to face the challenge of minority government. They will have to appoint experts to replace the Free Democrat ministers and state secretaries - people who are respected here and abroad. As Laszlo Lengyel wrote recently: the only way to survive is to set up a "political government of experts." The focus must be not on the reforms, which are damaged goods, but on political and social consolidation, which must be pursued at the same time as financial and economic stabilisation. That's what a new coalition or minority government will have to do.
hvg.hu: Can Gyurcsany stay if there's such a fundamental change of direction? His name is indelibly linked to the neoliberal programme.
The Socialist leadership and Ferenc Gyurcsany must be prepared to rebuild the coalition on a different basis or to set up a minority government if this doesn't work out. After the 9 March referendum, and with the coming referendum on healthcare funding, the Socialist party can no longer advocate neoliberal economic and social policy. Otherwise, the party will just plunge even further in the polls. If Ferenc Gyurcsany cannot do this in the coming months, then the Socialist Party will no longer be Gyurcsany's party. Even up until now it wasn't really his party. The Socialist Party unites many different kinds of left-wing forces, even in its current, weakened state. These forces are capable of banding together in cases of real danger, changing the party's internal balance of power. We mustn't forget that the Socialist Party will continue to exist without Gyurcsany.
hvg.hu: Who has a political and economic programme among the leading Socialist politicians?
I'm not aware of any Socialist politician with a coherent economic and political programme. I think Ferenc Gazso's system-correction thesis is the beginnings of such a programme. He rejects the marketisation of education, healthcare and public administration. In its place he wants to use the state and local authorities to put these various systems in order. Katalin Szili mentioned these ideas last year, unleashing two months of fierce debate. That could have been used to develop a new left-wing economic, social and political programme. But the balance of power within the coalition stopped this from happening. The crisis creates a new situation. Needs must - and a new programme could be developed in just a few months.
Lajos Dalmáth
