There are many names applied to Hungary’s political system. Amid heated debate among the liberal and conservative (and far-right) elites of Europe, it has been branded a hybrid democracy, dictatorship, authoritarian regime, the last bastion of free speech, the Trojan horse of Russia – or simply a faulty cog in the European machine. However, recent events that led to the resignation of Hungarian President Katalin Novak may help us get closer to the definition. Due to its unique Hungarian characteristics, the term “One Man democracy”, or “Orbanocracy” describes it best.
But how does that relate to the President of Hungary resigning, as well as Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s ex-Minister of Justice, Judit Varga? The events of the last 8-10 days exposed the real core of how Orban’s Hungary operates – and how its strongest point is also its biggest weakness.
Unpacking the pardoning controversy
As in many parliamentary democracies, the Hungarian President has a largely ceremonial role with one special power that has its roots back to the time of absolute monarchy – the right to pardon people, thereby freeing them not only from their remaining sentence but often even cleaning their criminal record completely. This power, however, is usually linked to the reigning government – meaning that the Minister of Justice needs to countersign the pardon proposal, taking political responsibility for the act.
The minister does have the right to reject the proposal – which has happened in the 34 years since the end of Communist rule. In 1998, Ibolya David, then Minister of Justice, refused to countersign the release of Peter Kunos, jailed for two years for economic crimes, and he remained in prison. Why is this important? Because the current scandal started with a pardon that was granted last year, during the Pope’s visit to Hungary. On that occasion, Novak pardoned 22 people at once – by far the largest number ever to be pardoned on the same day.
On February 2nd, 444, one of the biggest independent news sites in Hungary, revealed that among those 22, one man pardoned was Endre K. (not named in full for privacy reasons), the former deputy director of the Bicske children’s home. Numerous children were sexually abused by the director of the home, János Vásárhely, over the course of 12 years. According to the court rulings, Endre K., his deputy, was fully aware of what was going on at the home and helped the director cover up the cases, even though he did not participate in the child abuse.
He went to the lengths of writing false statements in the name of children and trying to force them to sign these documents that claimed that the children had made up the abuse stories and that they were untrue. Vásárhelyi was found guilty of pedophilia and child abuse and was sentenced to eight years in prison. Endre K. was also convicted and sentenced to three years and four months in prison for coercion in 2019 at the first instance, and then again in 2021 at the second instance. Novak decided to pardon Endre K. 8 months before the end of his sentence – a pardon that also meant he no longer had a criminal record and hence could return to his profession, working at children’s homes.
Orban’s calculated maneuver
The first reaction to the article was silence from the President’s Office and Fidesz, the ruling party that nominated her and to which the former party Vice President is still considered closely affiliated. Fidesz’s propaganda machine tried at first to cover for the President, arguing that no pedophile had actually been pardoned, even though nobody claimed that. However, it was clear that an accomplice of a pedophile had been pardoned and released. Novak’s only reaction came at a press conference with the Armenian President, where she said: “There has been no pardon for pedophiles under my presidency, and that was the case in this instance as well,” – deflecting blame without giving any explanation of what happened.
It is rare to see Fidesz’s propaganda machine frozen, and unable to react to events. The opposition went on the offensive, invoking the responsibility of the government, and ultimately Orban, since as it was his Minister of Justice who had countersigned the proposal. Calls began for Novak to resign, but at first, it appeared that the system would sit tight and counter-attack. Then it was reported that Fidesz – which bases all its decisions on focus groups and small-scale public opinion surveys – had begun testing questions about Novak’s responsibility, and how far the public believed it was the government’s fault. That’s where events took a sudden turn, and Orban decided to step in.
He released a Facebook video saying that pedophile acts were the worst in nature, they disgusted him, and that the “debate on the President’s pardoning power” needed to be resolved (without mentioning Novak). He proposed an act that would limit the pardon, preventing its use in any case involving harm to children. Once this video was out, Novak’s days were numbered because, with this statement, Orban deflected responsibility from himself or the government. Nobody is too big to fail in Orban’s world, not even the President of the Republic if a scandal has even the slightest chance of harming him and his image.
Based on the surveys, it became obvious that this one could potentially be dangerous, so he immediately took matters into his own hands and as one Hungarian political analyst wrote “cut out the cancerous tissue with the right consistency and ruthlessness”. This cancerous tissue also included Varga. Although she had already left her ministerial position earlier in 2023, aspiring to lead the Fidesz list in this year’s European Parliament elections, she released a statement at the same time of Novak’s live TV announcement, saying that she resigned from all public duties and offices and will retire from the public eye.
Implications for Hungary’s political future
The strongest part of Fidesz, and Orbanocracy, is Viktor Orban himself. His image, his “visionary view of the events of the world”, is the ultimate protector of Hungarians. However, having everything relying on him, and with pockets of free media still existing in Hungary, Orban is also the weakest point of the whole system. Any damage to him is damage to everything he built. If he goes, the system goes. As a result, nobody, not even female politicians groomed over decades as the “humane face of Fidesz”, is too big to fail or indispensable when it comes to protecting Orban.
Fidesz is keen to move on. “Unlike the left, we are able to take responsibility,” said Mate Kocsis, leader of the Fidesz group in Parliament. Nevertheless, this was a big blow to Orban and his system. Novak is the second (out of three) president handpicked by him who has been forced to resign in the last 14 years. However ruthlessly and swiftly Novak and Varga were thrown under the bus, these acts hurt internal interests within his party. Cracks were revealed in the system – even if they were not strong enough now to get to Orban. But someday, they will. And when that happens, Fidesz might not be able to cut the tissue out so quickly, and Orbanocracy may come to an end with the fall of its creator: the One, Viktor Orban.