HUNGARY: Fidesz party pushes a new constitution through parliament, bypassing an opposition boycott

Record ID: 327346

  • Title: HUNGARY: Fidesz party pushes a new constitution through parliament, bypassing an opposition boycott
  • Date: 19th April 2011
  • Summary: BUDAPEST, HUNGARY (APRIL 18, 2011) (REUTERS) STREET IN FRONT OF PARLIAMENT WITH CRANE AND PEOPLE GATHERING VARIOUS OF PEOPLE GATHERING FOR FLASHMOB PROTEST AGAINST THE CONSTITUTION VARIOUS OF TOP VIEW OF PEOPLE FORMING SHAPE OF 2/3 MAJORITY OF FIDESZ SYMBOLISED BY ORANGE COLOUR AND A WHITE FORM OF LAW BEING THREATENED BY THE FIDESZ SHAPE PROTESTERS LOOKING PEOPLE THRO
  • Embargoed: 4th May 2011 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Hungary, Hungary
  • Country: Hungary
  • Topics: Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVAANT1ORHVJ49BOO3JUSMCEST5V
  • Story Text: Hungary's Fidesz party pushed a new constitution through parliament on Monday (April 18).
    Centre-right Fidesz, which swept to power with a two-thirds parliamentary majority in 2010, has overhauled the constitution and says this will complete a democratisation process started in 1989, when Hungary's communist regime collapsed.
    "How could we change this country without a new constitution I am asking those fellow MPs who stayed away from the debate. The former constitution did not protect people from poverty, did not protect people from getting into debt," Fidesz parliamentary group leader Janos Lazar told parliament ahead of the vote.
    "The new constitution will protect people because it contains basic values -- values such as work, solidarity, right for self-defence, values that will bring security, jobs, development for the country," Lazar said.
    Only the ruling Fidesz-KDNP bloc, with 262 votes, approved the constitution, while 44 deputies voted against and one abstained. The Socialists and green liberal LMP stayed away from the vote. The far-right Jobbik party voted against the law.
    However, critics say the governing party should have consulted far more widely before rewriting Hungary's basic law. The Venice Commission, the EU's constitutional law advisory body, has questioned the transparency of the process.
    Fidesz said that with its big parliament majority, it can decide what priorities to articulate because voters have authorised it to enact changes.
    Thousands of people protested last Friday (April 15) against the new constitution, which human rights and civil groups said would weaken democratic checks and balances when it comes into force on January 1, 2012.
    On Monday as the vote got underway in parliament, about a hundred people staged a flashmob mobilised via social network website Facebook. They formed one shape of a two-third majority of orange colour symbolising Fidesz, and a white shape of the symbol of law being threatened by Fidesz.
    "The whole thing was a very quick process and it was not at all discussed with society. And I think it'd be better to have real discussions about a constitution so that everyone can be behind it. Now not everyone is behind it at all, in fact, fewer and fewer people. We wanted to show that this is nothing but a kind of devouring of laws" said protester Karoly Fuzessy.
    Analysts say a key problem with the new constitution is that it would allow Fidesz appointees to control key public institutions -- such as the budget supervisory Fiscal Council -- well beyond its government's term, whichin 2014.
    "One the one hand, these changes will make it more difficult to remove Fidesz from power, on the other hand they will make it easier later for a Fidesz in opposition to form a very strong opposition to the government," said Peter Kreko at think-tank Political Capital.
    According to a survey last week, 57 percent of Hungarians believed the new constitution would need to be confirmed by a referendum, and only 29 percent said it was sufficient for a two-thirds parliament majority to approve it.
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