Visiting poorer neighborhoods of MSZP electorate wasn’t Gyurcsany’s only shift in his approach. Apart from moving into Avas for a day, Gyurcsany has also introduced a notable change into his own rhetoric. In a comment to MTI Gyurcsany said that for the time being he sees no political force that could replace Viktor Orban’s government once it has collapsed, adding that the government’s downfall would be “a very bad development, because there is no sign for any governing force that would be able to bring stability and prosperity for Hungary in the near or distant future for a post-Orban period”. “Orban should go – but still stay for a while,” Gyurcsany said.The current opposition, “is disintegrated in a political, moral, personal and organisational sense, and characterised by distrust, prejudice and oversensitivity.” Even though all these events sound pretty much like a political PR meant to gain followers for his new party, Gyurcsany has received fierce criticism for this.
The harshest one came from the left-wing extremists of Amerikai Népszava, who alleged that Gyurcsany has “killed himself”, that “he took a path by this rhetoric which he cannot return from anymore” and that he “emasculates everyone who listens to him”.
No less harsh was the criticism from Gyurcsany’s former fellow party member and rival Tibor Szanyi in Népszava: he’s not only alleged that Gyurcsany’s “raving about the tasks the leftists have at hand”, but also proposes freezing all the assets of the people who became rich “undeservedly” and seems to believe that “even the strictest Swiss banks would assist in this”.
Others were softer (and much less dramatic let alone demagogic) in their criticism: Péter Németh of Népszava has argued that the question’s purely hypothetical, since none of Orban’s closest men are aware of the fact that they should oust him. He also went on to say that the opposition should stop procrastinating, as every single day takes Orban closer to turning Hungary into a dictatorship.
Ferenc Krémer of the pro-Gyurcsany Galamus group has also criticized him for his reluctance to refer to Orban’s government as a dictatorship (Gyurcsany seems to prefer the term “autocracy” instead), which Krémer thinks is pointless, since both words mean essentially the same. On the other hand he thinks that the only chance for the Hungarian left (and Hungary alltogether) is if some of the rightist politics will start resenting Orbán and will essentially topple him “from within”. Otherwise – Krémer argues – there’s hardly any chance for a “peaceful transition” (i.e. from Orbán’s government to another one).
Hungarian Digest 