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Hungarian referendum decides whether to slam the door on migrants
Sunday's referendum about whether to accept EU migrant quota – 1,294
refugees – has unleashed dark forces and opened a new era for Europe


An Afghan migrant crossing from Serbia is halted by Hungary's fence at
Roszke last week. Photograph: Vadim Ghirdă/AP

Patrick Kingsley

Saturday 1 October 2016 23.45 BST Last modified on Sunday 2 October
2016 09.57 BST

As a small crowd of pensioners gathered outside the little village
hall in Mártély, southern Hungary, all seemed calm. A horse and cart
trotted past, long-bearded villagers settled into their wooden seats,
and a cat mewed in the corner.

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But the atmosphere changed when János Lázár, one of Hungary's most
powerful politicians, strolled up the street and began to speak.
"There are decisions that extend beyond party politics, and this is
one of them," Lázár said softly to the crowd. "This is something that
will define the future of Hungary."

Hungarians head to the polls on Sunday for a referendum on immigration
that ministers have portrayed as a make-or-break moment for the
Hungarian nation, and a watershed for Europe as a whole.

The question being asked is wordy and vague, its legal consequence
unclear, and its primary context seems parochial. Literally
translated, it asks if immigrants should be sent to Hungary without
parliament's approval. Essentially it's about whether Hungary should
be forced to accept just 1,294 refugees stuck in Greece and Italy as
part of a responsibility-sharing system agreed by EU countries this
time last year. However small the numbers involved, the ramifications
of this poll on the eastern edge of the European Union could be
enormous.

Within Hungary, critics argue that the referendum helps the government
of Viktor Orbán to distract from its domestic failures. Outside,
analysts say a strong turnout will give the prime minister, perhaps
the most influential far-right leader in European electoral politics,
added momentum in his battle for the soul of the continent.

A scuffle about 1,294 refugees is in fact a war over the role of the
nation-state, and the nature of European democracy, argued Gerald
Knaus, the director of thinktank European Stability Initiative. "It's
a performance that's not about results – he's not worried that any
refugees will end up in Hungary," said Knaus, a major player within
refugee-related politics in Europe. "The refugee issue for Orbán is
really just a means to an end – and that end is a cultural
counter-revolution in Europe and an end to liberal Europe," he said.

Unlike populists such as Nigel Farage, Orbán does not want to leave
the EU. But he does believe in devolving power from Brussels, in
building fences to deter migrants, and in deconstructing the kind of
liberal democracy represented by the likes of German chancellor Angela
Merkel. He recently called for a "cultural counter-revolution" within
Europe, has praised aspects of strongman leadership by Russia's
Vladimir Putin and Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and hopes his
referendum will lead to a series of similar plebiscites across the
continent.

Csaba Tóth, co-founder of the Hungarian thinktank Republikon, said: "I
think Orbán genuinely believes that Europe is changing, that what he
calls the liberal model is failing, that the present EU elite –
Jean-Claude Juncker, Merkel and the European commission – are wrong,
that he's right, that the majority of European people are behind him,
and that he's the forerunner of things to come. He believes that, in
10 years, we'll see more Marine Le Pens in Europe than Junckers and
Merkels, and that history will judge him [kindly]."

But first Orbán must secure a turn-out of more than 50% on Sunday. To
do so, his government has unleashed what research by Transparency
International suggests is the largest advertising campaign in
Hungarian history. Even in the countryside, voters are never far from
a poster that warns: "Don't put Hungary's future at risk!" Of the
roughly 20,000 outdoor advertising spots in the country, nearly 6,000
have been taken over by the government's campaign, TI's legal
director, Miklós Ligeti, said. That is five times as many as the next
largest, mounted by a tobacco firm in the mid-1990s.

Big hitters such as Lázár have been dispatched to tiny villages to
make the case for voting. Mártély was Lázár's 20th. "First it will be
1,000, then it will be 10,000, 20,000, 30,000 – if they come, it will
be irreversible," he told the villagers. "Regardless of who you vote
for, regardless of whether you like Viktor Orbán, this is about who
will live in your village, and therefore you should vote no."

"A yes vote will force a flood of people on us – people with a
poisoned tooth in their pants!" yelled one of the long-bearded
pensioners, a retired electrician, Tibor Antal. "What will we do if
those guys come here? We'll beat them up!"

Hungary's rights campaigners say that the referendum campaign has
turned an already dark public discourse into something far worse. "The
mood is quite reminiscent of the 1930s," said Márta Pardavi, co-chair
of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee rights group. Pardavi fears that
stigmatisation of refugees could soon accelerate the alienation of
other marginal groups in Hungary. "Racism directed towards one group
can easily be transferred towards other groups in society – and the
seeds of this are being sown by the government through their
taxpayer-funded campaign," said Pardavi. "This is what distinguishes
Hungary from other European countries with hate speech – here it's the
government that is funding it."

Orbán's critics are suspicious about the timing of the referendum. No
one expects the government to lose. Most of the liberal opposition
don't dare to call for a yes vote, instead telling voters to stay at
home or spoil their ballots.

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Very few migrants now reach Hungary, after the country's controversial
new border fence blocked their path. Some suspect that the referendum
is a means of distracting the electorate from more pressing issues,
and of outflanking Hungary's largest opposition party, the far-right
Jobbik.

"Immigration ceased to be an issue within the country earlier this
year, and so Orbán's popularity started to drop," said András
Bíró-Nagy, a research fellow at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
"That's when they basically invented this referendum. That's how he
can keep up his popularity."

Opposition politicians say the referendum is illegitimate according to
electoral law – that it's beyond the purview of the Hungarian
parliament. "The question is unconstitutional," argued Viktor
Szigetvári, leader of Együtt, a liberal opposition party. "And it's a
sign of our illiberal democracy that such a formally illegal question
can be put on the ballot paper."

For people like Szigetvári, this is just the latest erosion of due
process under Orbán.

Orbán's opponents claim that his Fidesz party has removed checks and
balances since taking power in 2010 – taking control of the
constitutional court, installing a partisan electoral commission, and
tinkering with constituency boundaries to ensure a larger majority.

Zoltán Kovács, the government's lead spokesman, called the allegations
"simply false", and "a common but stupid criticism". Kovács said the
referendum was legitimate because it had been verified by the
constitutional court, that the court was legitimate because its
members were elected by parliament, and that no gerrymandering had
taken place to create parliamentary constituencies.

"The Hungarian voters' will has been administered clearly and, at the
end of the day, it's about the number of votes," said Kovács. "The
opposition has to accept that."

But independent watchdogs allege that Orbán's alarmist advertising
campaign has diverted unnecessarily large amounts of state funds
towards advertising moguls and media barons who tend to be friendly to
his government.

Referendum advertising has largely appeared in outlets like 888.hu,
Magyar Idők, Magyar Hírlap, Lokal, Ripost, TV2, EchoTV – newspapers,
websites and channels owned by businessmen considered to be Orbán
loyalists. A lamp-post ad firm owned by another Orban associate,
István Garancsi, has also profited from the campaign – as has an
advertising agency owned by the neighbour of a government minister,
Csaba Csetényi. Lázár, regarded as Orbán's gatekeeper, said there was
nothing untoward about engaging party loyalists. "They don't need the
money – they've got enough money. This issue is much bigger."

Kovács said: "These are political allegations. All spending comes
through a public procurement process, everything goes through rules
that are valid, and everything is completely transparent."

Transparency International is unconvinced. "Our concern is about the
very questionable transactions that surround this campaign," said
Miklós Ligeti, TI's legal director. "It's a government campaign, not a
party campaign, and the government is putting lots of funds into crony
companies for their advertising."

On the high street in Mártély, few seemed to care. Welcoming people
from the Middle East was simply a bad idea, said József Borsos, the
mayor. "In our past we had a lot of experience with the Ottoman
empire," he said. "They lived here for 150 years. And no Hungarian who
knows history will want that again."

A sign stuck to the bus stop reveals that the village is funded by the
EU. But Hungarians don't owe Europe anything, Borsos said – they'd
done enough just by joining. "We've allowed the free flow of capital,"
Borsos noted. "Factories and multinational companies can come here and
profit, while we've given up on some successful industries."

Ferencné Lugosi, a 76-year-old former chef, was convinced refugees
would put Hungary's security at risk. Yes, 200,000 Hungarians sought
refuge from communism in 1956, she admitted, but today's refugees are
very different. "They want Hungarians to be their servants," Lugosi
argued. "They think that it's the duty of Christians to serve them."

Additional reporting by Benjamin Novák

A CRUCIAL QUESTION
Hungarians go to the polls on Sunday to vote on whether parliament
should allow the EU to set a quota for refugee resettlement in the
country. The referendum was conceived and championed by the prime
minister, Viktor Orbán.

Voters will be asked the question "Are you are in favour of the EU
being allowed to make the settlement of non-Hungarians obligatory in
Hungary even if the parliament does not agree?" The country received
the second largest number of asylum applicants in Europe last year,
behind Germany. Hungary received 174,000 asylum applications (13% of
Europe's asylum seekers) – but very few actually stayed. In August
Orbán announced that the country was planning to build a second fence
to prevent refugees from crossing the border. It will stand next to
its current 500km razor wire fence that runs alongside its border with
Croatia and Serbia. Last year some 400,000 migrants crossed Hungary –
fewer than 18,000 have done so in 2016.

Until mid-June, only 2,280 people had been relocated across Europe
from Greece and Italy, according to EU data. None were relocated to
Hungary.

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