wh y w e l o s t
42
on the public’s view of a given politician. According to a survey in 2000, 29% of journalists
would have voted for the MSzP, 24% for the SzDSz, and only 22% for the governing coalition
(
See
Borókai, Gábor, “Government Communication – In an Unfriendly Environment,” in:
Kurtán-Sándor-Vass (eds)
Political Yearbook of Hungary 2002
, Budapest: Demokrácia Kuta-
tások Magyar Központja Alapítvány, 2003). This means that leftist parties’ support was more
than twice that of the right, representing an overrepresentation of the left in the media.
According to the statistics
14
, the market share of the leftist media is much greater than that
of the right. This has a strong influence on coverage and the attitude towards the govern-
ment, especially during elections. It is also true that the media was utterly subordinated
to party politics during the electoral campaign in 2002. This clearly favored parties who
were able to reach a greater proportion of the public through the “friendly” media, i.e. the
MSzP. Much less media coverage was available for the right to convey its messages to the
voters. Though the right took control of the public media, public TV was less influential.
Nonetheless, the Socialists and liberals accused the government, especially Fidesz, of mo-
nopolizing public media in order to influence the opinion of the voters.
The Campaign – Unforced Errors
Unsuccessful Strategy
Fidesz had absorbed almost the entire moderate right by the 2002 elections. It had inte-
grated almost all of the parliamentary group, as well as a great part of the voter base, of its
former coalitional partners. MDF entered the elections on a joint list with Fidesz. After the
joint list was created, the “right” coincided with Fidesz, which embodied the only viable
opposition to the post-Communist MSzP and its liberal satellite party, the SzDSz.
In contrast to the 1998 elections, both parties prepared for the 2002 campaign careful-
ly and well in advance. In another first, both sides used campaign techniques found in
the United States and Western Europe (
See
Mihályffy, Zsuzsanna, “From the Media to
the Neighborhood,” Paper to be presented at the 7th Annual Kokkalis Graduate Student
Workshop, 2005.) The stakes were high, and the campaign reached a level of intensity
unmatched in Hungary’s short history of democratic elections. Fidesz saw the election as
a legitimization of a four-year fight against post-Communism. A victory would have justi-
fied its policies and created the moral basis for further demolition of the remaining post-
Communist structures. Both sides realized that the right’s victory would have weakened
the post-Communist party and possibly destroyed its ideological base. Another question
to be resolved was which government would lead the country into the EU. It was assumed
that the government which led Hungary into the EU would reap tangible political and
financial benefits that could virtually carry them into victory for three to four terms in the
future. It seemed that the 2002 elections would not only affect the upcoming four years,
but would determine the balance of power for another decade or so.
Fidesz followed its 1998 strategy by consciously avoiding the tools of a negative cam-
paign. Fidesz used positive themes and avoided controversial and provocative ones. The
main message of the campaign was the success of the government. It featured an impres-
14
