TENS OF thousands of Hungarians rallied in Budapest last night against the country’s controversial new constitution and a conservative government that domestic and foreign critics accuse of conducting a dangerous power-grab.
One report quoted organisers of the demonstration as saying that 100,000 people had gathered outside the opera house in central Budapest, a day after the introduction of the new constitution marked the latest stage in prime minister Viktor Orban’s transformation of Hungary.
He has used a two-thirds majority in parliament to radically change laws governing the country’s media, judiciary, central bank, religious organisations and electoral systems, in what he says are long-overdue changes to modernise Hungary and remove the last vestiges of the communist era.
Opposition parties and rights watchdogs in Hungary and abroad accuse him of removing all checks and balances on his power, placing allies at the head of all major national institutions and enshrining changes that will be extremely difficult for subsequent governments to alter.
Parliament passed a new central bank law last week despite European Commission chief José Manuel Barroso asking Mr Orban to amend the Bill to ensure the bank’s independence from government was protected.
Mr Orban also received a letter from US secretary of state Hillary Clinton this month expressing “significant and well-founded” concerns about the state of democracy in Hungary, in which she reportedly noted particular worries about new laws taking the country’s media under tighter control and slashing the number of its officially recognised religions.
Former Belgian premier Guy Verhofstadt, who now leads the liberal faction in the European Parliament, called the new constitution a “Trojan horse for a more authoritarian political system in Hungary based on the perpetuation of one-party rule”.
Hungarian law expert Peter Hack said that “all formerly independent institutions are now under the direct or indirect influence” of Mr Orban’s Fidesz party.
Mr Orban has also unnerved foreign investors by slapping special taxes on business and nationalising private pensions to plug holes in his budget.
After halting talks with the International Monetary Fund last year amid talk of reclaiming Hungary’s “economic sovereignty”, Mr Orban now hopes to secure a financial “safety net” from the lender to protect the country’s ailing economy.
The IMF has suggested that erosion of the central bank’s independence could jeopardise any deal, however.