VZCZCXRO3284
RR RUEHAG RUEHDA RUEHDF RUEHFL RUEHIK RUEHKW RUEHLA RUEHLN RUEHLZ
RUEHROV RUEHSR RUEHVK RUEHYG
DE RUEHUP #0698/01 0951559
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 051559Z APR 06 ZDK
FM AMEMBASSY BUDAPEST
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 8926
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 BUDAPEST 000698 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR EUR/NCE MICHELLE LABONTE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV KDEM SOCI HU
SUBJECT: HUNGARY'S ELECTIONS:  PROMISING CAKE TO PENSIONERS 
(C-RE6-00145) 
 
REF: STATE 22644 
 
------- 
Summary 
------- 
 
¶1. (U) This cable examines the likely role of pensioners in 
this spring's elections, and the issues most likely to unite 
them.  Pensioners are a large and growing segment of 
Hungary's voting population.  As elsewhere, they turn out at 
the polls more regularly than younger voters.  Today's 
pensioners care about pension security; purchasing power, and 
targeted price supports for pharmaceuticals, transportation 
and other services.  The more critical, longer-term issues of 
raising the retirement age and strengthening the role of 
private retirement accounts have not entered into the 
campaign. 
 
------------------- 
Actuarial Realities 
------------------- 
 
¶2. (U) Hungarian pensioners are the largest segment of the 
electorate -- and an expanding one.  In 2004, the average 
Hungarian couple had just 1.28 children.  The average age of 
a Hungarian is 47 years old and rising.  A recent overview of 
the pensions issue by center-right news daily Magyar Nemzet 
quotes insurance-industry experts as saying that in 1990, 
contributions by 5.4 million workers were financing the 
pensions of 2.5 million retirees.  The two groups are 
expected to be equal in size around 2010, while the 1990 
proportion should be reversed by 2020.  According the Central 
Statistical Office, in 2005 there were 3,036,000 pensioners 
and 3.9 million workers.  However, in January 2006, Corvinus 
University sociology professor Tamas Bartus claimed to 
Emboffs that pensioners already outnumbered workers.  Sixteen 
percent of Hungary's population today is over 65 years old, 
recalls Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany in his 2005 book, 
Mid-Journey. 
 
¶3. (U) While figures vary, Hungary's population is indeed 
aging, and policymakers will not long be able to ignore that 
fact.  Indeed, Hungary introduced optional private retirement 
plans to supplement state pensions as early as 1977. 
Nonetheless, fiscal hawks charge that incentives to 
participate in such plans are too weak, even while 
acknowledging that today's workers fail to use current 
opportunities to the fullest.  Today's pensioners eschew the 
risk involved in personal accounts, preferring a guaranteed 
state pension.  Despite occasional admonishments by officials 
to invest in such private accounts, Hungarian savings rates 
remain low. 
 
¶4. (SBU) The current government has left the overall pension 
system essentially unchanged over its past four years in 
office.  In reviewing its achievements, MSZP's 
pensioner-targeted campaign literature has focused on the 
gradual introduction of a "thirteenth-month" pension payment 
over the current term.  That same literature claims a 
30-percent rise in pensioner purchasing power between 2001 
and 2006, and successive pension increases of 13.1 percent, 
9.6 percent and 8.4 percent in 2003, 2004 and 2005, 
respectively.  According to this view, the lot of pensioners 
has been steadily improving, and the party hopes they will 
remember that at the ballot box. 
 
¶5. (U) However, perceptions by retirees themselves may 
differ.  For many pensioners, the growing gap between the 
average pension and the average working income is a source of 
anxiety.  Under the current "Swiss-indexation" method 
currently used to recalculate pensions annually, 
cost-of-living increases equal only half the rate of 
inflation.  Moreover, as working Hungarians scramble to match 
EU-15 living standards, today's state pensions are looking 
increasingly inadequate as a basis for future financial 
security.  For example, one insurance company calculates that 
those who retire after January 1, 2013 with an average 
monthly income of HUF 150,000 (USD 714) can expect to receive 
a monthly state pension of some HUF 73,000 (USD 348).  ("Do 
you know how little that is in Euros?" FIDESZ pensioner group 
president Dr. Pal Aszodi asked Emboffs.)  Many others live 
below that level today.  According to National Retirees 
Representative Agency (Nyugdijasok Orszagos Kepviselet) 
president Ervin Mihalovits, there are some 800,000 pensioners 
living on HUF 50,000 to 60,000/month (USD 238 to 286/month) 
and an additional 20,000 living on a scant HUF 30,000/month 
(USD 143).  Hungarian retirees also receive transportation 
and other subsidies. 
 
 
BUDAPEST 00000698  002 OF 003 
 
 
¶6. (U) Beyond the perceptions, Hungary's retirement system is 
ill-prepared to service an aging population.  Frequent 
tinkering by successive governments over the past twenty 
years has failed to address larger issues affecting the 
retirement system.  Risk-averse Hungarians remain reluctant 
to invest in personal retirement accounts, suggesting that 
incentives may need beefing up.  The retirement age 
(currently 62 for both men and women) is probably 
unsustainable, given Hungary's aging population.  Some 
systemic inequities have resulted from periodic changes in 
the method of calculating pensions:  for example, as 
Mihalovits explained to Emboffs, those who retired prior to 
1989 did so on more disadvantaged terms than those who 
stopped working later, and former collective-farm employees 
have especially pathetic pensions.  Moreover, the common 
practice of underreporting one's earned income leaves today's 
system underfunded and tomorrow's retirees shortchanged, 
since future pensions are calculated based on reported 
income.  In his book (Mid-Journey), the current PM has 
proposed establishing a higher universal minimal monthly 
state pension, perhaps of HUF 30,000 (USD 143), with 
additional benefits contingent on private savings plans. 
(Note:  Since 2004, the current minimum pension has been HUF 
23,200, or USD 110.)  However, Gyurcsany also put the cost of 
such systemic reform at HUF 1 trillion (USD 4.76 billion), 
and thus advocates gradual implementation.  Unsurprisingly, 
no such proposal has appeared in his campaign speeches. 
 
----------------------------------------- 
Campaign Promises:  More Cake and Candles 
----------------------------------------- 
 
¶7. (U) So far, Hungary's political class has done little to 
retool the system, offering band-aids in campaign season and 
less afterwards.  In the 2002 campaign, MSZP promised a 
"thirteenth-month" pension, and currently FIDESZ is promising 
a fourteenth month on top of that.  (When asked, neither 
Mihalovits nor Somsak thought such promises alone would sway 
older voters.)  Also in the current campaign, PM Gyurcsany 
(MSZP) has pledged (1) to lower the age for free train and 
bus travel from 65 to 62, (2) to allow early retirement to 
those aged 55 and older who have been out of work for two 
years, and (3) to offer special "one-off" bonus payments of 
HUF 90,000, 95,000 and 100,000 (USD 429, 452 and 476) to 
retirees on their ninetieth, ninety-fifth and one-hundredth 
birthdays, respectively.  (Note:  Under socialism, the state 
presented one-hundred-year-olds with a congratulatory 
birthday cake.)  His rival Viktor Orban (FIDESZ) has promised 
free medications to those over 65. 
 
¶8. (U) Under MSZP's 100 Steps program, additional, piecemeal 
changes have been promised by 2010, e.g., a 50-percent 
increase in widows' benefits, in two steps; and selective 
increases to disability pensions established since 1991. 
Other changes may do a better job of minimizing the 
inequalities between pensions for those who retired in 
certain periods.  For example, in 2007 MSZP promises to raise 
pensions for those who retired prior to December 1987 (for 
men by three percent, for women by five percent).  In 2008, 
pensions for those who retired between 1991 and 1996 would 
increase by four percent, since they were represent a lower 
proportion of income than pensions calculated in different 
periods.  Also in 2008, the same pensions would rise by 0.5 
percent per year worked in excess of 29 years, up to a 
maximum of ten percent.  In 2009, all pensions for those who 
retired between 1988 and 1990 would rise by two percent. 
 
¶9. (U) In addition to phasing in a fourteenth-month pension 
over four years, FIDESZ has pledged to provide those over age 
60 with certain medications free of charge, such as cancer 
drugs, with a small per-package copayment; grocery vouchers 
for the elderly; 100-percent pensions for women who have 
worked for 40 years; a ten-percent reduction in electricity 
prices from July 1, 2006; a one-third price reduction in 
heating costs; an annual cap on price increases for heating 
gas, public-transportation costs and pharmaceuticals in line 
with inflation; and a strengthened consumer-protection office. 
 
------------------ 
The Pensioner Vote 
------------------ 
 
¶10. (U) FIDESZ's promises notwithstanding, it is reasonable 
to expect a plurality of retirement-age voters to support 
MSZP this time, as indicated by past election results and 
current polling.  In 2002, older voters displayed a 
preference for parties on the left, and according to an 
analysis by Corvinus University political scientists, in 2002 
50 percent of voters cast ballots for MSZP, 40 percent for 
 
BUDAPEST 00000698  003 OF 003 
 
 
FIDESZ and 4 percent for SZDSZ.  At a March 23 pollster 
roundtable, Gallup Hungary's Robert Manchin stated that while 
FIDESZ leads among voters under age 45, MSZP is ahead with 
the 65-plus crowd -- and the race is a dead heat among voters 
between those two age groups.  Also in March, the 
FIDESZ-friendly Szazadveg Foundation reported that 36 percent 
of all respondents believed a Gyurcsany-led government would 
do more to improve the social conditions of pensioners, 
against 23 percent who thought an Orban government would do 
better.  Although Dr. Aszodi complained to Emboffs that 
successive governments have shown partisanship in funding 
pensioner advocacy groups, he also insisted that such groups 
needed such support to function -- and his own party 
preference is clear, as he is running on a FIDESZ party list 
in Baranya County.  (Note:  At the same time, Aszodi 
partipates in the allegedly MSZP-friendly government advisory 
group chaired by Mihalovits.)  Yet such alleged partisanship 
is unlikely to affect the way the pensioner vote splits.  In 
February, MSZP Party Vice President Imre Szekeres told 
Embassy that he thought MSZP would do well with pensioners 
this time as well, citing a reasonably-priced "food basket," 
affordable housing, low inflation, and a program that 
provided 500,000 of Hungary's estimated three million 
pensioners with cost-free prescription drugs as reasons to 
count on pensioners' support. 
 
------------------------------------------- 
Comment:  Are the Pensioners a Voting Bloc? 
------------------------------------------- 
 
¶11. (SBU) No.  That said, pensioners tend to vote for the 
MSZP more than for FIDESZ, and a strong turnout by retirees 
could tip the balance in MSZP's favor while slightly 
undercutting SZDSZ.  Although each major party appeals 
directly to pensioners, the pensioners themselves have shown 
limited organizational mettle, perhaps impeded by rising 
transportation costs and low rates of Internet use:  National 
advocacy groups remain divided along party lines, and the 
so-called Pensioners Party is unlikely to approach, let alone 
pass the five-percent threshold to entering Parliament. 
 
¶12. (SBU) Many Hungarian pensioners live on meager incomes, 
and their anxiety about rising costs is real.  An MSZP 
victory, with or without SZDSZ, may result in a somewhat more 
systematic effort to fix the current system's inequities, but 
the Swiss-indexation system will stay, and average pensions 
will remain modest.  FIDESZ's stated platform consists 
entirely of palliatives.  Either major party's promises, if 
fulfilled, will give pensioners some relief.  However, most 
of this campaign's promises to pensioners come down to more 
birthday cake. 
 
¶13. (U) Visit U.S. Embassy Budapest's classified website: 
www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/budapest/index.cfm. 
WALKER