[spectre] soros/hungary

[geert]

(via lbo talk)

Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2002 07:45:07 -0800 (PST)
From: Kevin Robert Dean <qualiall_2@yahoo.com>
Subject: Soros goes to Hungary

Hungary criticizes Soros campaign 
ISN, Wed 27 Feb 2002 
  
Hungarian-born financier George Soros, whose
foundation has spent US$125'000 on a poster campaign
urging Hungarians to vote in April national elections,
has been told to stop trying to influence the
campaign. The billionaire philanthropist has helped
fund thousands of election posters featuring rock
stars, the disabled and a semi-naked lesbian couple in
a bid to encourage voters to turn out in the fiercely
contested ballot, due on 7 April. But Laszlo Kover,
vice-president of the Fidesz Party, the senior partner
in Hungary's center-right coalition, said late on
Monday that Soros had no right to get involved in
campaigning. "Why does Soros think anyone gave him the
right to interfere with the elections?" Kover told a
campaign meeting. Soros's Open Society Foundation put
up 5'000 posters in and around Budapest, carrying the
slogan, "We're going to vote. Are you?" and aired
radio commercials urging people to vote. Anna Delia,
executive director of the Soros Foundation in Hungary,
said the election posters did not favor any party.
"Our sole aim is to increase turnout in order to have
the most legitimate government after the elections,"
she said. "We don't need the government to give us any
rights regarding the elections. Only the citizens are
empowered to decide the outcome." Voter turnout at
Hungary's last two national elections in 1994 and 1998
was relatively low at just above 50 per cent and
political analysts say low turnout this year would
favor the extreme-right Hungarian Justice & Life Party
(MIEP). Kover's Fidesz and the main opposition
Socialists have been running neck-and-neck in opinion
polls for months and analysts say MIEP, which won its
first seats in Parliament in 1998, could end up
holding the balance of power. Any coalition, however
informal, between Fidesz and MIEP - a party that has a
damning record on anti-Semitism and which rails
against foreign influence in business and the media -
could dent Hungary's bid to join the EU by 2004.
Kover, widely seen as Fidesz's leading ideologist and
second only to Prime Minister Viktor Orban in the
party hierarchy, is chief architect of a Fidesz
campaign aimed at wooing the far-right vote in a bid
to be the first post-communist government to win
re-election. Kover ruled out the possibility of a
grand coalition between Fidesz and the Socialists, the
two biggest parties, but stopped short of excluding a
coalition with MIEP. "There's no way of agreeing with
these (Socialists)," Kover said in response to a
question. "We can have a deal, but they would then
stab us in the back without hesitation." Fidesz has
been rattled by Socialist opposition to a deal the
government struck last year with neighbor Romania over
a new Status Law which gives ethnic Hungarians living
in nearby states access to medical, travel,
educational and vocational benefits. In a bid to win
Bucharest's agreement, Hungary opened up the accord to
Romania's low-paid workforce, prompting opposition
fears that Romanians would take seasonal jobs in
Hungary, dragging down wages and increasing local
unemployment. (Reuters)