Demagoguery is a communication weapon whose purpose is to discredit the political opponent. His toolbox: preaching false doctrines, making irresponsible promises, referring to partial truths, slips, demonizing the political opponent, whipping up emotions, in short deceiving the people. Since the domestic opposition has neither an independent political vision nor a coherent economic and social program, its style of politics is necessarily demagogic.

A prime example of this is the debate on next year's budget, during which the left-liberal politicians put forward HUF 4,600 billion amendment proposals. This is not aimed at improving the government's proposal, although that would be the task of a constructive opposition. This measure would actually disintegrate the concept of the presented budget.

A set of irresponsible promises to get votes.

In order to eliminate demagoguery, a law would be needed, according to which whoever proposes an income-increasing measure for some social strata in the parliament, must also indicate the budget item from which it would be taken away, or which tax would be raised. It would also be good if politicians in a coalition prepared a joint, aggregated presentation of their amendment proposals.

Another major area of ​​opposition demagoguery is the perpetuation of bad social well-being.

For this, the entire range of those listed in the first paragraph is deployed. They complain that since 2010 everything here is bad, worse than it was during the Gyurcsány government. We are the pariah of the Union. This tactic is based on the fact that the electorate forgets everything in a few years, and those age groups who no longer have any memory of the Gyurcsány era become voters.

The most effective tool against opposition demagoguery is authentic information.

For this purpose, the indicators that are the most important from the point of view of the economy and society must be developed, and these must be presented on a diagram starting in 2004. The color of the background should show the political side! Because the direction of the processes is the point, and not the current state of the indicators. I am not an expert on the subject, but I do have some ideas: the development of the minimum wage, the average wage and the average pension; the evolution of expenditure per pupil/person in education and healthcare; the evolution of the amount spent on family support; the evolution of the public finance deficit; the evolution of GDP and GNP per capita on a common diagram, with the interpretation of the indicators. In order to eliminate the inflationary effect, these indicators should be calculated in current euros! Other prominent indicators: the development of the fertility rate of women; the development of unemployment without public work; trends in the number of public workers; trends in the number of workers abroad; the trend in the number of newly built apartments; the evolution of our gold reserves, etc. In my opinion, the obligation to publish the indicators in question should be prescribed by law for the current government, which would also create a resource for social, fact-based communication. The indisputability of the data, the comprehensibility of the diagrams, and the way the information is delivered are of decisive importance! Since the majority of LMP and Momentum's voter base is made up of educated people, authentic information could certainly reduce the support of the two parties in question, especially among university students. And a voter who switched sides from the opposition counts twice! With credible support, the number of passive voters could also be reduced, since they are dissuaded from voting by the opposition's demagoguery, while they do not want to vote for the opposition.

Furthermore, the legacy of the Gyurcsány government must also be presented.

This would be especially important for first-time voters. How much was the debt stock of municipalities, hospitals and schools. What large systems did the government buy back: utilities, MOL, banks, etc. It should also be pointed out that Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány borrowed about 2,000 euros from the IMF in order to avoid state bankruptcy - for each citizen - so that the Orbán government had to repay it over the next four years. This has already undermined the operation of the Orbán government. The liquidation of the Gyurcsány heritage is also a refutation of the claim that "they steal everything".

Educating the population of the capital must be considered a priority task

After all, the most successful mayor of the last hundred years was replaced based on demagogic promises! That is why it is necessary to present which major investments are financed by the government, which Gergely Karácsony has nothing to do with. The major investments that the left-liberal city government has prevented or is trying to prevent should be listed: Southern Buda Hospital, Liget Program, Galvani Bridge, Fudan University, the 2026 athletics EB investments. In a demagogic way, Gergely Karácsony blames the government for everything, his favorite saying is that the government is bleeding the capital. In order to refute this, it is necessary to be aware that dr. How much money and securities did mayor István Tarlós leave to his successor, and how much does he support the Government of Budapest with?

The government's support for this unqualified opposition is only around 55 percent, which is proof of the government's weak communication. I am convinced that the effectiveness of the opposition's demagoguery could be significantly reduced with the measures proposed above, i.e. authentic and effective information, and perhaps two-thirds of the list could be achieved. There would also be a great need for closer national unity, given the difficult and worsening foreign policy situation, the permanent war with Brussels, and the 2024 elections.

Pál Bartha ny. forest engineer

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Cover image: Illustration / Photo: MTI/Zoltán Balogh