Word: jobbik
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...center-right Fidesz party had long been favored to win this election. Fidesz, led by Viktor Orban, captured 52.8% of the vote, compared to just 19.3% for MSzP. But hardships fostered by the economic crisis upset the political status quo by giving sudden rise to the far-right Jobbik party, which won an unprecedented 16.7% of the vote to finish in a close third. (See pictures of immigration in Europe...
...Fidesz might be the big winner - the party goes into the second round of the elections on April 25 within grasp of the two-thirds parliamentary majority required to make constitutional changes - but it is Jobbik's strong showing that has shocked many political analysts and ordinary Hungarians. The party, which espoused nationalist and anti-Roma rhetoric during the campaign, has proved it is now a force in Hungarian politics, though how it will factor into any future government remains unclear...
...Many analysts see Jobbik's ascendancy as a sign of disenchantment among an electorate weary of politicians and battered by the financial crisis. Hungary has had a rough time lately: the economy contracted by 6.3% in 2009 and unemployment now tops 10%. Also last year, the previous Socialist Prime Minister, Ferenc Gyurcsany, resigned following years of controversy that began when he admitted that his party had lied about the state of the economy before 2006 elections. "[Jobbik] is a protest movement," says Laszlo Csaba, an economics professor at Budapest's Central European University. "And without strong ideological or organization glue...
...Jobbik's platform is plain and simple: it is distrustful of outsiders, opposes foreign ownership of agricultural land and is proudly Christian. After the group was founded in 2003, it erected crosses across the country in protest against the foreign commercialization of Christmas. "We provide the most authentic and clearest answer for problems," says Vona. "And we express the wish of a lot of people that Hungary should belong to Hungarians." (Read: "Murder Mystery: Who's Killing Hungary's Gypsies...
Just how powerful might the far right become? Such parties are now in a position to influence European legislation, though most advocate withdrawal from the European Union. Addressing a Jobbik rally last year, the BNP's Griffin invoked the memory of Hungary's 1956 revolution, suppressed by Stalinist troops. "Where is the power hunger and the corruption of the Soviet kleptocracy now? ... It is in Brussels," he said. "The European Union is a threat to all the free peoples of Europe...