Why Hungary’s election has gone to the dogs

Two dogs have been put up for seats in Hungary’s parliament in a move that could play a decisive role at the country’s general election.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban speaks to supporters. Picture: AFP.

Like so many politicians aspiring to national office, Huba believes in a better and fairer world.

In Huba’s case, however, that better world involves ample scratches on the tummy and a more equitable distribution of meaty treats.

Huba is one of two dogs who have been put up for seats in Hungary’s parliament by a satirical party that could play a decisive role at the general election in seven weeks’ time.

The Hungarian Two-Tailed Dog party (MKKP) was founded as a joke in 2006, with policies such as free beer, eternal life and a Hungarian restaurant on Mars. At its first electoral outing it only fielded candidates called Nagy Istvan, the Hungarian equivalent of John Smith.

Vowing to “make Hungary smaller again” – an allusion to the 1920 Treaty of Trianon, which stripped Hungary of almost three quarters of the territory it had held before the First World War – the party proposed ceding “unnecessary regions” of the country to its neighbours.

This time, though, it may end up as a serious player. Viktor Orban, 58, the prime minister who has held a seemingly invincible grip on office since returning to power in 2010, is fighting for his political life.

Eight sizeable opposition parties, ranging from liberal environmentalists and social democrats to staunch conservatives, have formed an electoral alliance, known as United for Hungary, to take on Orban.

Polls suggest that it will be a close race. Most have put Orban’s party, Fidesz, in the lead by between four and 13 percentage points but one survey last month suggested that the rivals were level. Peter Marki-Zay, 49, the leader of the opposition alliance, has put his chances of ousting Orban at about 40 per cent. Against this backdrop the scale of support for the MKKP may be the margin between victory and defeat.

It is heading for its best result yet, with 3-4 per cent of the vote, thanks to a slick social media campaign and stunts such as smuggling soap into hospitals in an attempt to expose their supposedly unsanitary conditions. The party has indicated that it is likely to run against candidates from the opposition alliance, potentially eating into their support. The MKKP’s 87 candidates for parliament include Huba, a bulldog running in a district near the Slovakian border, and Rado, a black Labrador from Vecses on the outskirts of Budapest, whose slogan is: “Up! Vote for me! Clever dog!”

Rado was out on the campaign trail yesterday (Sunday) next to a stand with party leaflets. It is unclear, however, whether Rado and Huba fulfil all the necessary criteria to become Hungarian MPs. Despite being Hungarian residents and having a clean criminal record, neither is over the age of 18, unless dog years are counted differently for electoral purposes. The dogs also need to gather 500 signatures from voters in their constituencies to run for office.

However, the MKKP stands a reasonable chance of achieving the 5 per cent of the national vote that it needs to obtain seats in parliament.

It is the most popular Hungarian party on Facebook, having amassed 318,000 followers with posts parodying Fidesz and its rivals, touting comically populist policies such as weakening the Earth’s gravitational field and showing a piebald dog pledging its support to a local candidate.

The party has issued mixed messages about whether it will compete against the opposition alliance in swing seats where the outcome could be decided by a few hundred voters.

Gergely Kovacs, 42, its leader, had pledged not to field candidates in tight races, but was overruled by the party membership, according to Telex, a Hungarian news website.

The Times