A boon for Jobbik

What looked like a more or less normal event in a market economy a few weeks ago is abruptly becoming a part of everyday politics. Despite legislative attempts to clear out the “manure stall”, Fidesz is starting to smell more of a barn than they would probably like. So far the government has been unable to credibly dispute the oft-repeated opposition claim of insider trading. The various elements, such as letters, data from government meetings and statements of managers involved, paint a rather heterogenous picture. The fact that the opposition has uniformly zeroed in on these serious allegations has only one pleasant side effect: the debates about other issues are off the table for now. The crisis communication of the government does not make the whole thing better, but even if they could distance themselves from insider trading, they would only provide an answer to the first of many, many questions. And these questions will be raised not only by independent news portals but also by the radical Jobbik, which is in an excellent situation: as a party it simply never was in a position to abuse public funds. While Fidesz is calling the issue a Socialist broker scandal and the Socialists are calling it a Fidesz broker scandal, Jobbik went for attack on all fronts and started calling it the scandal of the Fidesz-Socialist coalition. They can do so because the roots of it all clearly go back to longer than the past five years. And the longer the issue drags on the better it will be for Jobbik. If you think that’s not a problem: according to a recent poll of Ipsos, Jobbik is within the margin of error of becoming the most popular party in Hungary.