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In reply to the discussion: STOCK MARKET WATCH - Friday, 6 January 2012 [View all]xchrom
(108,903 posts)63. Orbán is the product of a fraught history
http://www.presseurop.eu/en/content/article/1360941-orban-product-fraught-history
About 100,000 demonstrators came out the other night around the Opera House, the government palaces and the most elegant avenues of Budapest to protest against the new constitution sought by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and voted through by the two-thirds parliamentary majority of his centre-right party.
They were more numerous than ever before, representing a society numbed by the economic crisis. But, like the Paul Street Boys [the famous 1906 novel by Ferenc Molnár] they were fighting a battle that was already lost. Under the gilt and chandeliers in the Opera House, the government celebrated the establishment of the new state, despite the disapproval of the international community.
Under the new Constitution, the Central Bank will henceforth no longer be independent of the government (odd idea in these financially turbulent times), as will the Constitutional Court and the media (many journalists have already been sacked under the new press law). The leaders of the current Socialist Party, meanwhile, can be prosecuted retroactively for "communist crimes" committed before 1989.
Added to this are a rash of laws on subjects ranging from the status of Hungarians living abroad to heterosexual marriage. Hungary has become a more authoritarian state, bucking the modern trend. This is a cause for concern for the European Union and Barack Obamas United States, as well as the International Monetary Fund, which has suspended negotiations on a massive loan to support the battered forint.
About 100,000 demonstrators came out the other night around the Opera House, the government palaces and the most elegant avenues of Budapest to protest against the new constitution sought by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and voted through by the two-thirds parliamentary majority of his centre-right party.
They were more numerous than ever before, representing a society numbed by the economic crisis. But, like the Paul Street Boys [the famous 1906 novel by Ferenc Molnár] they were fighting a battle that was already lost. Under the gilt and chandeliers in the Opera House, the government celebrated the establishment of the new state, despite the disapproval of the international community.
Under the new Constitution, the Central Bank will henceforth no longer be independent of the government (odd idea in these financially turbulent times), as will the Constitutional Court and the media (many journalists have already been sacked under the new press law). The leaders of the current Socialist Party, meanwhile, can be prosecuted retroactively for "communist crimes" committed before 1989.
Added to this are a rash of laws on subjects ranging from the status of Hungarians living abroad to heterosexual marriage. Hungary has become a more authoritarian state, bucking the modern trend. This is a cause for concern for the European Union and Barack Obamas United States, as well as the International Monetary Fund, which has suspended negotiations on a massive loan to support the battered forint.
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