Surviving the Campaign: The struggle to combat hate speech and polarisation during the Hungarian elections

By Bea Bodrogi

Hate goes hand in hand with polarisation. This is nothing new: it was made obvious by Donald Trump’s election campaign and governance, how enmity can be created between certain social groups, and how this can lead to long-term fracturing of society. It is widely believed that Trump was influenced by the illiberal concept of Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán. An electoral campaign is currently in full swing in Orbán’s homeland. Let us see how the illiberal state has been inciting hate to achieve political ends.

General parliamentary elections will be held in Hungary on April 3 2022, with the electoral campaign already beginning on February 12. According to the OSCE, there were already serious problems in 2018, as the state disrupted the equality of the nominating organisations, and used its resources to fund the campaign of the ruling party. In a move unprecedented in the EU, the OSCE will be sending a full delegation to observe the elections. Part of the reason for this are concerns in connection with hate speech. Over the last few weeks, different parties have been using different types of hate speech, with resulting effects on society. 

“Hate goes hand in hand with polarisation.”

The most serious case is connected, via government agencies, to the ruling party. On the same day as the elections, the government will also be holding a referendum, in a manner which is extremely questionable from a legal perspective. The referendum questions are misleading and are likely to incite hate towards members of the gay and trans communities. This hate campaign began a long time ago, through various channels close to the government, in addition to the revocation of the right of trans people to legal gender change. The message is clear: promoting the rights of LGBTQ+ people is equated with corrupting children. We must emphasise that these messages are circulated using state funds and state authorities. Meanwhile, their aim is to polarise society for the purpose of keeping the ruling party in power. Particularly in rural areas, fear of the unknown is a significant motivation driving voters to support the ruling party at the elections.

However, the ruling party is not only using state institutions to disseminate its divisive and polarising narratives. It also has direct control over two-thirds of the national media. Using its centralised propaganda apparatus, it can easily and effectively reach every segment of the population with its hate campaigns. A few years ago, these channels were used to spread hostility towards migration, as well as the government-generated narrative whereby George Soros is secretly controlling all NGOs and the opposition, and is in fact responsible for the entire migrant crisis. Now, this apparatus is being used to promote narratives hostile to LGBTQ+ people and to Western liberal values. 

“Fear of the unknown is a significant motivation driving voters to support the ruling party at the elections.”

In addition however, the ruling party has also built up a number of GONGOs around itself. These organisations, under the guise of feigned independence, disseminate the same messages to citizens via social media. One of the most significant of these organisations spent roughly 1.5 million EUR over two years to promote its messages on Facebook, but money from the public purse is also flowing generously to anti-semitic media outlets. 

Thus, the ruling party is disseminating a great variety of hate messages through many different channels. By increasing polarisation, their aim is to create support for the ruling party among voters who have never been in direct contact with people from other ethnicities, religions, sexual orientations or gender identities.. Thus, the incumbent party hopes to obtain enough votes to win the next election within the electoral system which it has distorted to suit its purposes.

However, it is not only FIDESZ who disseminates hate narratives. Another party, Our Homeland (“A Mi Hazánk”), currently garnering 2 to 3% support of the population, according to polls, is seeking to win over voters primarily based on its anti-Roma platform. The party’s main message in the campaign is "Hungary can’t be turned into Gypsy-land!”Naturally, they also propagate anti-LGBTQ+ messages, but as that field has already been overwhelmingly dominated by the party currently in power, the only way that the ultra-right party can set itself apart is to take up an anti-Roma stance. 

“By increasing polarisation, their aim is to create support for the ruling party among voters who have never been in direct contact with people from other ethnicities, religions, sexual orientations or gender identities.”

The movement opposing the ruling party – made up of conservative, liberal, and some traces of social-democrat elements – does not make use of hate-speech tactics, but takes an approach which is questionable for other reasons. Péter Márki-Zay, an independent candidate who is currently leading the opposition parties, has frequently stated in public that he thinks Viktor Orbán’s son is gay. He has said this in the context of drawing attention to the government’s hate campaigns, and while this does not in itself constitute hate speech, this type of unsolicited intrusion into private life is always cause for concern among LGBTQ+ people. The opposition and Márki-Zay are taking a stand against the hate campaigns, but it is still uncertain whether their tactless approach will only serve to further marginalise an already vulnerable group. 

There is a lot of fear in Hungary, and therefore a lot of hatred as well. It is primarily the incumbent party that tries to leverage this for its own purposes, but other parties are not above doing the same. The channels for the dissemination of hate campaigns are broad and varied; unfortunately, little space is given to other voices. The fact that the impact of anti-migration/anti-migrant narratives is minor, already seven years after the 2015 refugee crisis, is cause for some optimism. The fear that was propagated did not come true: the migrants never came. It is likely that, on the longer term, anti-LGBTQ+ propaganda will be met with the same fate: LGBTQ+ people will not perform sex change operations on children. We can always hope that reality will eventually triumph over the messages being communicated. 

Human rights organisations can, and do, help to a great degree in raising awareness about the groundlessness of these fears. Persuasion at the personal level is still an opportunity for NGOs, even when the state and, in many respects, the centrally controlled media, serve polarisation and hate speech. Besides telling citizens not to fear the unknown, NGOs can also encourage them to take a proactive stance against hatred. Unfortunately, the odds seem stacked against them at the moment, as political change would be needed in order to create a level playing field. Still, there is room for manoeuvre: active citizens, NGOs and human rights groups can do a lot to ensure that at least the vision of decent public discourse and inclusive society survive this campaign.