Today could be designated a day of outrage for at least three reasons. First is the solution the National Institute of Oncology came up with for the problem of too few doctors and healthcare providers for the far too many cancer patients who need care. Instead of trying to find a satisfactory answer to its obviously inadequate organization, the director-general of the institute decided to lock up the building until 7:30 a.m. In this way, the patients don’t have to sit in the staircase but can instead stand on the street, rain or shine. The hope is that the new software to handle appointments will be ready by August and that, from that time on, everything will run smoothly. Promised software is usually not delivered on time, and when it is delivered, it often has glitches. So I wouldn’t have high hopes for a seamless transition from semi-chaos to a model of efficiency.
The second outrage was the discovery that József Tóbiás, a former chairman of MSZP who is currently one of the socialist members of parliament, moved with his wife and two children to the Canary Islands last September. He “commutes between the Canary Islands and Kossuth Square,” as Blikk put it. Actually, this revelation didn’t require the work of a score of investigative reporters; his wife, a former beauty queen, bragged about their luxurious new lives under the palm trees on Facebook. Although the commute is a bit cumbersome (after all, the Canary Islands are 3,800 km from Budapest), Tóbiás does show up here and there in parliament. And I do mean “here and there”: of the eight meetings of the judicial committee, he was present only once. Tóbiás told Blikk that the reason for the move was the health of their boy, who suffers from some kind of respiratory problem. He claimed that his stay there is temporary, but he is diligently studying Spanish.
That was yesterday. Today, Tóbiás got an ultimatum from his party. He has to choose. Either Tenerife or a seat in the Hungarian parliament. He has time to decide until the beginning of the September session. Meanwhile, he has to attend all plenary sessions and carry out his duties as a member of parliament.
There are several vexing issues in this case. The first is Tóbiás’s boldness in ripping off the system in such an unabashed manner. Second, how did he have the financial wherewithal to decamp with his family to Tenerife? His gross monthly salary as a parliamentarian is 1.38 million forints (4,200 euros), and net is about half of that. Third, the picture that emerges of the top MSZP leadership is devastating. I simply cannot believe that his colleagues in the socialist delegation had no idea that “Józsi” was living in the Canary Islands.
By moving to Tenerife with his whole family Tóbiás exhibited a total lack of political sense. Did he believe that he would be able to keep his escapade secret? Did he think through the political consequences of his action for his own career and his party’s reputation? Or, did he no longer care about either?
His action is yet another nail in MSZP’s coffin. First came the disappointing numbers from the European parliamentary election followed by Deputy Chairman Tibor Szanyi’s outburst against the party leadership. Subsequently, Szanyi was stripped of all his positions in the party hierarchy. With Tóbiás’s scandal I suspect that a fair number of those few party supporters who are left may conclude that the party deserves to disappear from Hungarian political life. I also wonder how many talented and good socialist politicians will be willing to remain in a party mired in internal strife and charges of corruption.
Finally, I would like to say a few words about the Tusnádfürdő/Băile Tușnad gathering in Romania. We are already in the middle of the six-day affair, during which some fascinating political discussions took place between the Fidesz representatives and the two people from the “opposition” who accepted invitations to attend. Originally, Fidesz invited Zsolt Molnár from MSZP and Péter Ungár from LMP. Intriguing choices. Molnár declined the invitation, but András Schiffer, founder of LMP, who is no longer a politician, said yes. Today I have no time to report on these discussions; I will return to them later.
Zsolt Semjén in Tusnádfürdő/Băile Tușnad / Photo: Dániel Simor / Index
Instead, I will write a few words about the speech of Zsolt Semjén, deputy prime minister, on Romanian-Hungarian affairs. Semjén is in charge of Viktor Orbán’s “nationality strategy,” the topic of his speech. Semjén’s most important revelation was that the Hungarian government institutionally supports Hungarian parties in the neighboring countries. Of course, it is a well-known fact that large amounts of money are being spent in the neighboring countries. Only a couple of days ago, K-Monitor, where K stands for “korrupció,” found on a government site—information that has since disappeared from the site—that in 2018 about 85 billion forints was spent on financial assistance for Hungarian ethnic groups in the neighboring countries. Until now, however, the Hungarian public didn’t know about direct aid for political parties. Semjén admitted that the Hungarian opposition criticizes these expenditures because of their lack of transparency while certain politicians in Romania, Slovakia, and Serbia complain about the foreign financing of ethnic parties.
If we can believe Semjén, the sum of 85 billion forints that K-Monitor found on the government site was only part of the whole because the figure for 2018 was 130 billion. And, Semjén added mysteriously, “it is actually more than that.” He cares not what the governments of the neighboring countries think about this most likely illegal support of the Hungarian parties. “One doesn’t have to be bashful; I accept responsibility with name and address. Yes. The Hungarian government in an institutional way supports these parties. If the successor states don’t like it, they can shove it.” (In the original: “Csókoltatom az utódállamokat, akiknek ez nem tetszik.”)
For those who are convinced that the Hungarians are totally innocent in the unfortunate ethnic strife in Romania, I have a message from Nándor Magyari, a sociologist from Cluj/Kolozsvár, who described the roots of the conflict in the following terms. “‘Romanians’ pretend that the real history [of the region] didn’t exist, as if the border at Úzvölgye beyond which they didn’t rule didn’t exist. On the other hand, ‘Hungarians’ pretend that this border still exists today, as if the ‘short’ centenarian historical presence is immaterial but only the ‘thousand years’ preceding it matters.” With this thinking the problem will not be solved, and the Hungarian government’s financing of Romanian-Hungarian parties will not make “Romanians” like “Hungarians” any better. In fact, it only adds to the existing antagonism.
