I would really like to forget about LMP, but its politicians won’t let me. Two weeks ago I wrote a post titled “LMP’s moral superiority crumbles in front of our eyes,” when I felt that LMP couldn’t possibly sink any further into the moral swamp in which it has most likely been for some time. At least this is what the stream of information that has been surfacing of late suggests. And most likely we don’t even know the half of LMP’s shady affairs as far as the party’s relationship with Fidesz is concerned.
Bernadett Szél, it seems, is one of those people who often fall under the spell of the last person they talk to. And lately she has been in very close contact with the relative newcomer to the party Péter Ungár, whom she considers “brilliant.” Mind you, this brilliant young fellow has brought plenty of embarrassment on the party, from being dead drunk at a Momentum camping event to his cynical comment on how he will justify not paying the party’s debt to the campaign adviser LMP hired.
Gábor Dömsödi, a former journalist and mayor of Pásztó in Nógrád County, who knows Ungár well, believes that in the last couple of weeks Ungár discovered his real political ambition: “He wants to be a Fidesz politician.” Dömsödi thinks that if Ungár manages to break up LMP, he might just fulfill his dream. “It’s a pity because he is an intelligent fellow,” says Dömsödi. If he thought he had a historic mission to build a party capable of defeating Fidesz, he might have been able to pull it off.
I’m afraid Dömsödi may also have fallen under the spell of Ungár, who exudes self-confidence. But I very much doubt this rash young man’s ability to rebuild LMP into a party of such substance that it would be capable of unseating Fidesz any time in the near future.
Although I hate harping on the filial relationship between Ungár and Mária Schmidt, one of the closest allies of Viktor Orbán, unfortunately one cannot ignore it, especially when it turns out that Mária Schmidt directly interfered in LMP affairs during the campaign. By now a circular e-mail from Erzsébet Schmuck, the campaign manager, has been made public. From it we know that Mária Schmidt told LMP that withdrawing 15 of the party’s candidates in favor of other left-of-center parties would result in a loss of their parliamentary representation. The circular e-mail went to the top leadership of the party. It is hard to know the numbers, but Dániel Kassai, one of the candidates who disobeyed and withdrew in favor of Ágnes Kunhalmi, told Egon Rónai of ATV that there are about 100 people who actually run the party. In any case, such a warning most likely made an impression, especially because it is an issue that deeply divides LMP.
It is unlikely that Mária Schmidt was worried about LMP’s parliamentary representation. She knew that in those 15 districts in which Ákos Hadházy would have liked LMP candidates to withdraw, there was an excellent chance that Fidesz could be defeated. If this had happened, the two-thirds majority would have been in jeopardy. There is no more charitable explanation for her “advice.”
Mária Vásárhelyi wrote a short piece about this incident in which she hypothesized why Viktor Orbán keeps bungling Mária Schmidt by his side. Schmidt has ruined everything she has ever touched. Here is the House of Fates Holocaust museum that cost 8 billion forints and has been sitting empty for years because the Jewish organizations have refused to endorse her conception. She completely butchered the celebrations lasting a whole year on the 60th anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution. She keeps causing embarrassment, be it over her relationship with the Lantos family or her conflict with Anne Applebaum. Yet Orbán not only tolerates her but supports her and gives her additional opportunities. The reason, Vásárhelyi claims, is her slow but tenacious destruction of the opposition parties.
I don’t think that Schmidt has any power over MSZP or DK, but LMP is a perfect target because in the last ten years this party hasn’t been able to decide where it stands politically and ideologically. Now, however, it is becoming ever more evident that LMP is shifting toward the right. For instance, the LMP leader Róbert Benedek Sallai, who liked to show up in bocskai in parliament, is a nationalist right-winger. The present co-chair, László Lóránt Keresztes, enthusiastically supported the phony Fidesz referendum on the forced settlement of migrants. Earlier these people were not the ones who were running the show. Things have changed lately. This party, especially after the departure of Hadházy, is not the same party Dömsödi supported half a year ago.
What’s happening today is a party purge. The right-wingers are getting rid of those who were ready to cooperate with the left-of-center parties. Ákos Hadházy would have been expelled, but he had the good sense to leave the party on his own. Dániel Kassai, who helped prevent a Fidesz win in Kunhalmi’s district, waited too long. He was expelled yesterday. The ethical committee under right-wing leadership came to the conclusion that even Bernadett Szél was guilty of collaboration, and her punishment consists of a three-year ban on running for any office. Her current co-chair position is assured, but this “punishment” prevents her from running for the position again in a year and a half. No wonder she taking some time off to think about her future.
Those were the happy days
The right-wingers of LMP have a real phobia about MSZP. For example, Márta Demeter, #3 on the LMP party list, was originally an MSZP member of parliament, but after becoming disillusioned with her own party she chose LMP. She was warmly welcomed by the leadership at the time, but since then she was twice rejected for party membership because of her socialist past. They called her a “thief” who took a mandate away from bona fide LMP members. In a similar vein, co-chair Keresztes wouldn’t withdraw in favor of Tamás Mellár, the independent candidate in Pécs, because the economist had served as an expert in Gergely Karácsony’s “shadow cabinet.” An acquaintance of Keresztes said of him that “he wouldn’t work with anyone who saw a socialist closer than 50 meters.”
I may add that Róbert Benedek Sallai, who was originally expelled from the party for physically attacking Hadházy, has been readmitted. So has the LMP candidate who managed to get the necessary endorsements with Fidesz help. LMP is on its merry way to becoming something quite different from what its supporters voted for.
I can only applaud Szél’s decision to spend a few quiet months pondering her future. She needs to think very hard about her role in this whole sorry affair. If she decides to return, the party’s future will no longer be in her hands.