Foreigners, again

After the initial shock, media loyal to Fidesz scrambled to think up creative explanations for the party’s defeat.

Party headquarters wasted no time in noting that Fidesz received more votes overall than the opposition.

In an interview with government-controlled TV broadcaster M1, campaign manager Kosa said in all seriousness that Budapest was lost due to the foreigners who are “insensitive to national politics, because they are not Hungarians or they do not understand us”.

He argued that opposition candidate Karacsony had engineered an entire campaign to convince the 90,000 foreigners living in the capital to vote for him, whereas, alas, the government had ignored them because their pollsters do not speak English.

Such was the bitterness that Fidesz lawmaker Peter Hoppal wrote on Facebook that it was “greed and stupidity which killed Budapest”.

In flagrante delicto

Hungarian politics has many currents, but fair to say elections have never revolved around sex videos — until now.

So spare a thought for the party’s spin doctors as they struggled to assess how unprecedented footage of politicians caught with their pants down — literally — would affect voter behaviour.

Here are the first lessons. Future campaign managers may want to take note.

The first sex video to appear online featured the popular independent mayor of the town of Budaors on the outskirts of Budapest. The mayor of 29 years was seen in x-rated action with a prostitute.

He reacted promptly by apologising to his wife and family and saying he had walked into a trap. He had only gone for a massage, he explained, but somehow things got out of hand.

Voter reaction: he was re-elected with 72 per cent of the vote, three percentage points higher than five years ago.

As sex tapes go, this was just the warm-up act.

The juicier scandal involved Zsolt Borkai, the Fidesz-backed mayor of the western city of Gyor and a former Olympic champion. Borkai and his business friends were filmed on a yacht in Croatia drinking, taking drugs and having sex with several young women.

After the video appeared on porn sites, serious questions were raised about whether the orgy was financed with public money, and if Borkai’s lifestyle was compatible with the Christian-conservative values of the governing party.

Borkai also apologised, though the damage was clearly done. To the surprise of many, he squeezed out a victory with 44 per cent of the vote (down from 61 per cent in the last election), but the scandal cost Fidesz dearly in Budapest and in the countryside.

It seems voters are still rather forgiving in Hungary when it comes to sex, lies and videotape.