VZCZCXRO7242
RR RUEHAG RUEHDF RUEHIK RUEHLZ
DE RUEHUP #0656/01 0891527
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 301527Z MAR 06
FM AMEMBASSY BUDAPEST
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 8865
INFO RUCNMEM/EU MEMBER STATES

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 BUDAPEST 000656 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR EUR/NCE MICHELLE LABONTE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: KDEM PGOV PHUM SOCI HU
SUBJECT: HUNGARY'S ELECTIONS: THE VIEW FROM THE NORTHEAST: 
HEVES COUNTY (C-RE6-00145) 
 
REF: A. STATE 22644 
     ¶B. BUDAPEST 00553 
     ¶C. BUDAPEST 00644 
 
 
------- 
Summary 
------- 
 
¶1.  (U) Heves County is an MSZP stronghold.  During a March 
23-24 election reporting trip through the region, most 
interlocutors predicted that MSZP would win all six of the 
individual mandates in the county.  Although the region is a 
traditional reservoir of strong Catholic sentiment, good 
relations prevail between it and the MSZP dominated local 
government.  In addition, disarray in the FIDESZ ranks and a 
booming economy associated with MSZP leadership point to the 
likelihood of MSZP keeping all its parliamentary seats in the 
region.  As in other areas of the northeast, most locals 
claim the Roma are easy targets for voter fraud and are not a 
real political force. 
 
---------- 
Background 
---------- 
 
¶2.  (U) Located to the northeast of Budapest, Heves County 
has roughly 328,000 inhabitants and 260,000 registered 
voters.  Industry and mine closures following the 1989 regime 
have adversely affected the northern and southern parts of 
the county and these areas have not done well in attracting 
new investment.  The southern part of the county also has a 
high proportion of Roma, most of whom live in small, 
underdeveloped communities. The three large population 
centers of Eger, Hatvan and Gyongyos have fared much better, 
particularly by attracting foreign companies to new 
industrial parks. 
 
¶3.  (U) The 2002 parliamentary elections confirmed Heves as 
the most Socialist county in all of Hungary.  All six 
individual constituencies were won by MSZP candidates and 
Socialists took 47 percent of regional list votes compared to 
FIDESZ's 36 percent. The historical city of Eger is the 
county seat. In addition to recent foreign investment, the 
city also owes its prosperity and low unemployment to its 
important tourist industry.  In 2002 the single riding 
encompassing Eger was won by MSZP mayor Dr. Imre Nagy in a 
close race that went to the second round.  Dr. Nagy's 
opponent in 2006 is FIDESZ national heavyweight Ervin 
Demeter, a former cabinet minister and a current MP. 
 
------------------------------ 
FIDESZ at Each Others' Throats 
------------------------------ 
 
¶4.  (SBU) Journalist Gabor Kuhne of the Heves Megyei Hirlap 
(a regional paper), told poloffs on March 24 that it would 
take a "miracle" for FIDESZ to win the individual mandate 
race in Eger because the local FIDESZ members are "at each 
other's throats."  Kuhne also gave similar odds for all 
FIDESZ candidates throughout Heves County.  According to 
Kuhne, a conservative group called the "Local Patriots" is 
traditionally at odds with FIDESZ on local issues.  Composed 
of members of the town's leading families, the "Local 
Patriots" do not consider themselves a political party, but 
its members have traditionally dominated the city government 
(though it now has few representatives on the city council). 
Kuhne also stated that FIDESZ fortunes are further 
complicated by internal party personality clashes and a local 
leadership vacuum. FIDESZ candidate Demeter has tenuous ties 
to Eger and Kuhne speculated that Demeter was brought in as a 
FIDESZ attempt to impose its will on the local party. 
 
¶5.  (SBU) MSZP's strength in the city stems from three 
sources, observed Kuhne.  About one third of the city's 
population lives in a communist era "planned community" 
(whose original residents were transplanted to Eger during 
the previous regime) and these inhabitants are staunchly 
MSZP.  Eger's local college, Eszterhazy Karoly College, has a 
socialist bent that influences the political thinking of the 
many local leaders who attended classes there, and the city's 
manifest prosperity is associated with MSZP's leadership. 
Kuhne said that relations between the church and the city 
government are good and that he really could not discern  the 
local church's position toward the various parties. 
(Comment: Kuhne's inability to determine the local church 
stance is in itself a significant indication of the good 
relations between the church and the city government.) Kuhne 
described the Roma as manipulated by various politicians and 
 
BUDAPEST 00000656  002 OF 003 
 
 
lacking political influence.  Kuhne dismissed the Roma Unity 
Party (which managed to get enough nominations for candidates 
to run in two of Heves's districts) as a factor, stating that 
nominations are easy to get. 
 
------------------------- 
Politicians Love the Roma 
------------------------- 
 
¶6.  (SBU) Laszlo Molnar, an economics teacher at Eszterhazy 
Karoly College, and an entrepreneur who runs a business 
providing food and cleaning services to local government 
institutions, echoed Kuhne's sentiments concerning Roma. 
Molnar told poloffs on March 24 that "Politicians love the 
Roma because they can be bought." Molnar said that eight of 
his company's twenty-six employees were Roma. He claimed that 
he actively recruits Roma out of a sense of social 
responsibility and even then he found it hard to find any who 
were "willing to work."  Molnar said that many of his workers 
tell him firsthand stories of politicians bribing Roma and 
using them to commit vote-fraud. 
 
¶7.  (SBU) Molnar predicted an MSZP win in Eger saying that 
FIDESZ had made two major mistakes in the campaign.  The 
first was that Demeter is unknown in the area and has few 
ties to Eger, and the second is that Demeter entered the race 
too late to win.  Per Molnar the most important regional 
issue is unemployment and he estimated the unemployment rate 
to be 3-4 percent in Eger and 9-10 percent in the 
countryside.  Molnar said the city is doing well and 
benefiting from its huge tourist influx and other prospering 
industries.  Molnar observed that Eger is a mostly Catholic 
city and even though he is Catholic he considers himself a 
"liberal Christian."  He announced that he was "fed up" with 
both MSZP and FIDESZ and would vote for SZDSZ or MDF. 
 
--------------------------- 
Roma Businessman Pro-FIDESZ 
--------------------------- 
 
¶8.  (SBU) Local Roma Sandor Danyi told Poloffs that as a 
businessman he supports FIDESZ because it is pro-small 
business.  Danyi, who is the managing director of a large 
construction company said that during the past four years his 
company had built significantly fewer buildings, and he 
attributed this to MSZP's perceived poor family aid policy 
which discourages new housing development. Danyi also 
mentioned that in his opinion 95 percent of Roma support 
"whoever gives them something."  Still he said, FIDESZ would 
have better economic and social aid plans for Roma because 
MSZP plans require too much of a "down payment" from Roma. 
(Comment: Poloffs interpreted this to mean that Danyi thinks 
MSZP puts too many requirements on aid to Roma.)  Danyi said 
that he does not expect the Roma Unity Party to do anything 
and that the Roma will not be a force unless various national 
Roma leaders put aside their personal agendas and unite. 
 
¶9.  (SBU) Danyi predicted that MSZP would likely win in Eger 
and said that running Demeter as a candidate was a "bad 
decision" by FIDESZ.  He added that MSZP would also win at 
least five and maybe all six of the seats in Heves.  Danyi 
attributed MSZP's strength to the fact that the region was 
doing extremely well economically and that tourism and 
industry were booming.  (Note: In December 2005 the mayor of 
Hatvan, one of the main population centers in Heves County, 
told poloffs that the unemployment rate overall was 3.5 
percent and only 7-8 percent for the city's Roma.  The 
remarkably low Roma unemployment rate is a sure indicator of 
the area's thriving economy.)  Danyi did point out that while 
Eger was doing well, Roma in the southern part of the county 
were much worse off. 
 
----------------------- 
"Peaceful Co-existence" 
----------------------- 
 
¶10.  (SBU) American Studies Professor Lehel Vadon explained 
to Poloffs that prior to the communist era, Eger was a very 
religious and conservative city.  To counter this "bourgeois" 
element, the government transplanted thousands of more 
politically reliable citizens to Eger in the housing area 
described in paragraph 5. In recent years, those who live in 
that part of Eger have reasserted their socialist leanings 
and this has contributed to MSZP's dominance.  Dr. Vadon said 
that voter apathy was also an issue.  The professor who 
teaches at Eszterhazy Karoly College, described the 
relationship between the local MSZP government and the church 
as one of "peaceful co-existence."  As an example he told how 
a local MSZP councilman had arranged for funds to restore a 
 
BUDAPEST 00000656  003 OF 003 
 
 
local church's altar. (Comment:  The peaceful relations 
between the Church and the city government certainly cannot 
hurt MSZP as it may take the edge off anti-clerical charges 
sometimes leveled against it elsewhere.) 
REEKER