| OCR Text |
Show 117 independence in 1993 and then a second party emerged a decade later known as the Movement for a Better Hungary (Jobbik). MIEP's most successful election was in 1998 when it received 14 seats, the most and only seats it has ever received, whereas Jobbik's success has continued to grow. In 2010, it won 16.7 percent of the vote and in 2014, it won 20.2 percent of the vote. In response to these parties and developments, the mainstream conservative party is pursuing an accommodative strategy, where it is trying to co-opt MCCP policy ideas and supporters. In 1998, in reacting to the MIEP, "Orbán [prime minister] also allowed members of his own party, Fidesz, to pander to MIEP's farright voters with comments about ‘traitors,' ‘cosmopolitans' and ‘communist Jews'" (Jordan 2010, 104). A similar pattern emerged after the 2010 election. As Jordan goes on to explain, "One of his [Orbán's] very first moves - a blatant co-opting of one of Jobbiks's campaign pledges - was to offer ethnic Hungarians dual citizenship" (2010, 105). Fidesz and Orbán clearly view Hungary's MCCP parties as rivals rather than as possible partners. In talking to Dr. Gabor Staudt, a member of parliament (MP) for Jobbik, he did not see this necessarily being a successful move for Fidesz. As he explains, With Fidesz, the approach is that sometimes the Fidesz says the same like my party. So there is a very interesting situation because Mr. Orbán, the Prime Minister sometimes says good things, but do not so good things. I know a lot of MPs from the Fidesz party and we have a lot of familiar things, but sometimes the decisions and the voting in the Parliament is a little bit different. So it's a very different situation because we accuse the Fidesz party that they say something and do another thing. (2014) In other words, an accommodative strategy, whether in a platform or speeches, is only as strong as the mainstream parties' follow-through. Finally, the left-right score was statistically significant with both the percent of |
