With the European Parliament elections coming this weekend, Orbán Viktor is on a quest to absolutely dominate the ballots, as he needs as many mandates in the EP as possible given how the EPP suspended them, and it's entirely possible they will be kicked out entirely past the elections. Fidesz, the party that's been ruling the 'illiberal democracy' in Hungary since 2010, is spending an insane amount of money and effort to make sure they win as many votes as possible while the opposition is sistematically destroyed. These upcoming elections give us a great opportunity to look back at the frauds, irregolarities and tricks used in last years Parliament elections in Hungary, as collected by OpenDemocracy with the help of multiple other websites, universities, civil groups and more.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/br...ing-raises-concerns-fraud-european-elections/
It's a very interesting read, but for those into a TL;DR version, here's some damning quotes that give a couple examples of how the elections were frauded to their favor, and how we can expect them to behave come this weekend as well.
--------------------
Handing out voter privileges to people who never lived in Hungary for historical reasons, then abusing of their newly found rights:
Physical manipulation of these foreign votes:
Allowing people who are "historically" Hungarian but don't live or ever lived in a EU state to vote in the EP elections as well:
Classic gerrymandering:
Paying voters and those who help them vote:
Threatening people (minorities, mainly) with a loss of welfare or jobs if they don't vote correctly:
Creating (or at least allowing) fake parties to further divide the opposition:
Doubts over the actual counting process:
Website malfunction that denied correct voting:
The election software failed but the official results were comunicated, casting doubts over the actual numbers:
This software was made to people with close ties to the government; investigation into them was stopped:
--------------------
There is a lot more too, of course, which leads up to the election. The most important is the media presence, with the government owning or being directly tied to giant media conglomerates, which allows them to control the vast majority of the media landscape, which in turn is pushing propaganda and fake news on a regular basis. Character assassination on the opposition, libel on their supporters, and a lack of proper media laws to account for the disparity. Just a reminder: oppositions have the right to appear 5 consecutive minutes on the national TV to showcase their program. National TV or other channels are not legally bound to have them or their views appear at any other point in time.
It's a very thorough article with a lot of research and facts, but in short, it confirms and compiles the reasons why last year's elections in Hungary, which allowed Fidesz to win a supermajority for the third consecutive time. There's reason to think they will use the same tricks to fraud the upcoming EP elections, and for any EU citizen it should be worrying that a member state openly manipulate the votes, which in turn changes the landscape of the entire EU Parliament.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/br...ing-raises-concerns-fraud-european-elections/
It's a very interesting read, but for those into a TL;DR version, here's some damning quotes that give a couple examples of how the elections were frauded to their favor, and how we can expect them to behave come this weekend as well.
--------------------
Handing out voter privileges to people who never lived in Hungary for historical reasons, then abusing of their newly found rights:
Physical manipulation of these foreign votes:
Allowing people who are "historically" Hungarian but don't live or ever lived in a EU state to vote in the EP elections as well:
Classic gerrymandering:
Paying voters and those who help them vote:
Threatening people (minorities, mainly) with a loss of welfare or jobs if they don't vote correctly:
Creating (or at least allowing) fake parties to further divide the opposition:
Doubts over the actual counting process:
Website malfunction that denied correct voting:
The election software failed but the official results were comunicated, casting doubts over the actual numbers:
This software was made to people with close ties to the government; investigation into them was stopped:
--------------------
There is a lot more too, of course, which leads up to the election. The most important is the media presence, with the government owning or being directly tied to giant media conglomerates, which allows them to control the vast majority of the media landscape, which in turn is pushing propaganda and fake news on a regular basis. Character assassination on the opposition, libel on their supporters, and a lack of proper media laws to account for the disparity. Just a reminder: oppositions have the right to appear 5 consecutive minutes on the national TV to showcase their program. National TV or other channels are not legally bound to have them or their views appear at any other point in time.
It's a very thorough article with a lot of research and facts, but in short, it confirms and compiles the reasons why last year's elections in Hungary, which allowed Fidesz to win a supermajority for the third consecutive time. There's reason to think they will use the same tricks to fraud the upcoming EP elections, and for any EU citizen it should be worrying that a member state openly manipulate the votes, which in turn changes the landscape of the entire EU Parliament.
