Temporary foreign residents in Hungary: Easy prey for the opposition (VIDEO)

from Gav Duncan

The activists had it easy; the foreign residents knew practically nothing about Hungarian history and politics. Why would they? All that the foreign residents knew of Hungary came from the intensely critical pages of international media. They were primed to believe what the activists planned to tell them. The difficulty of learning the Hungarian language means that most foreign residents are unable to communicate with most Hungarians. That means that these temporary residents don’t understand why Hungarians think and feel as they do when it comes to politics. Informed by ignorance, these foreigners are easy prey for opposition activists.

In 2019, opposition activists deliberately sought to encourage foreign voters to regard their vote as a blow struck against the Hungarian government and prime minister. Municipal elections are not about the central government and the prime minister. Local governments are about who can best provide the services which communities are entitled to. Foreign residents, especially those unable to communicate in Hungarian have no place trying to tell Hungarians how they should vote. There’s a name for that sort of behaviour: colonialism.

If all this seems hard to grasp, think about the situation reversed. If I were to send scores of thousands of Hungarians to your city to vote for local government officials in the assured knowledge that they’d be long gone before the end of the five-year term, how would the electorate of that city feel? Has the penny dropped yet? Local government elections are about local communities and local services. If anyone tries to tell you anything else, they’re lying.

Here’s a little video I made to highlight the problems Hungarians face when ignorant foreign (temporary) residents feel that it’s their destiny to meddle in the elections of others.